SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
If the Governor signs MD HB177, beekeepers in Maryland will be granted legal permission to shoot black bears if they threaten honey bee colonies, but only if they have contacted the state's Department of Natural Resources to receive an electric fence:
It's a cliché that happens to be true: Bears love honey. And in Maryland, lawmakers have passed a bill making it legal to shoot a black bear if it threatens a beekeeper's hive.
In February, state Del. Mike McKay testified before the Environment and Transportation Committee on behalf of the bill. He wore a vest festooned with the image of Winnie the Pooh. Del. Herb McMillan noted McKay's attire didn't seem to square with his arguments. "I know you came in here talking about Winnie the Pooh, but the gist of the bill is that you can shoot him," McMillan said, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Existing Maryland law requires a person to have a hunting license and a black bear hunting permit in order to hunt black bears in the state. Exempted is "a person who kills or wounds a black bear in defense of his/her own life, the lives of other individuals, or the lives of animals on the individual's property." This week, Maryland's General Assembly passed McKay's bill. So, if the measure is signed by the governor, as of June, the exemption on hunting bears will extend to the owners of honeybee colonies, if the owner has contacted the state's Department of Natural Resources and installed an electric fence to protect the hive. The measure also provides funds to provide electric fences to beekeepers.
(Score: 1) by gtomorrow on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:21AM (8 children)
Really? This is the lawmakers' solution to the dwindling honeybee population problem? Instead of outlawing the pesticides that have decimated the honeybees (and frankly ain't doing us very much good either), let's kill the bears that account for, what?, .001%* of the problem? [/kneejerk]
* pulled that number out the air, for the statistically-precise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @01:38PM
Why don't they just outlaw a bear coming too close to a bees, like a restraining order? Or better, outlaw more than a few bees dying at once?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lx on Thursday April 13 2017, @01:44PM
You want beekeepers to shoot pesticide producers?
Seems fair.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @03:22PM (5 children)
You completely misread the situation.
Colony collapses, whether owing to pesticides, parasitic mites, other causes or a complex of the above, are orthogonal to the problem of a bear deciding that one particular beekeeper's hives are a tasty snack. A bear can absolutely wreck a beekeeper's livelihood over the course of a couple of days of eating - a problem that isn't confined to beekeepers. They can do terrible damage to orchards as well, for example.
At this point the electric fences are mostly a sop anyway. Bears that want to pass by electric fences are quite capable of climbing past them, or just destroying the fences. (Ever seen what a bear can do to a fence it doesn't like? I have. Imagine a tractor driving through it.) From the ignorant suburbanite's point of view, the idea appears to be: "We don't have to shoot bears! They'll just be stopped by electric fences! Yay, bears!" while in reality it's more of a delaying tactic for the authorities who, for political reasons, don't really want the bears to be shot, while recognising that it's either that, or just forget beekeeping on any scale beyond that of the occasional hobbyist.
One of the harsh realities of agriculture is pest control. Sure, you can get cute with it, doing things like keeping ducks to control slugs, and dogs to control coyotes, but at some point you have to contend with apex predators like wolves and eagles, 500 pound omnivores like bears and feral hogs, or simple masses of herbivores such as deer and locusts. And so far, fighting back is pretty much our most effective answer.
However, I stand ready to buy your book on negotiation with the wild, complete with worksheets for getting to know each other, learning how to love, and non-confrontational predation seminars.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday April 13 2017, @07:30PM
Maxim Six:
"If your electric fence failed to stop the bear, you failed to use sufficient electricity."
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:04PM
Blue Peacock [americandigest.org] stops bears in their tracks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @01:46AM (1 child)
When I saw the headline, I thought "How difficult can it be to make a bear-proof barrier?"
I figured some rebar and some welding and some concrete for an anchor.
Space things far enough apart that the bees can get through and close enough that a bear can't.
It shouldn't take that much material.
Make it tall enough that a human can stand up in it and far enough from the hive(s) that even if the bear got a limb through, he couldn't reach anything of value.
How far off am I?
They can do terrible damage to orchards as well
Details would be interesting.
for example
There are other items that relate?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday April 14 2017, @04:48AM
Black bears climb. Almost anything a stock human can climb, the bear can too (and some things you can't, thanks to their claws). And standing, they've got more reach than you.
Here in MT we have a problem with bears breaking into garages, because they've learned that's where the freezer is kept, and that meat is kept in freezers. In fact a couple years before we got this place, a bear broke into the rental house and had its way with the fridge. (And no, it's not in the wilderness; we're a mile from town, with plenty of neighbors, and on a busy highway and RR track.)
Bears also break into cars:
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/30/us/to-bears-in-yosemite-cars-are-like-cookie-jars.html [nytimes.com]
Bears damage orchards by climbing into trees where their weight breaks the young productive branches, and also by simply pulling them down to get at the fruit.
Economics of bear damage (this is to timber but you get the idea)
http://www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tpl/Downloads/URSUS/Vol_12/Ziegltrum_Nolte_Vol_12.pdf [bearbiology.com]
More on black bears and crop damage:
http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/black_bears.asp [icwdm.org]
Black bears are not rare. Even Maryland, hardly most people's idea of rural, estimates a population of about 1000 bears (and estimates usually err too low, often by a lot).
http://dnr2.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/bbfaq.aspx [maryland.gov]
Electric fences help, but some bears get wise to them.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Goghit on Friday April 14 2017, @03:48AM
Well, speaking as a bear-keeper in bee, err, that is, a bee-keeper in bear country, electric fences are pretty damn effective, subject to a few conditions:
1) Properly installed. This includes using an effective ground around the perimeter wires. Usually chicken wire laid flat on the soil connected to grounding rods driven into the dirt does the job.
2) Proper maintenance. Keep the weeds cut and the battery charged.
3) Train the bears. Seriously, you need to teach the bears to respect the fence. After installing it, wire some freshly emptied sardine tins to the fence hot wires. A couple of 10 kilovolt zaps to the nose does wonders for attitude adjustment.
Every case I've seen of bear damage has followed on #2, and far too often those cases were the results of someone stealing the fence charger's battery. I fully support the use of firearms in these cases.