3 weeks ago
11
YOSEMITE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - Yosemite National Park is location to hundreds of achromatic bears, but rangers accidental tourists are posing a hazard to their livelihoods.
Drivers person deed 18 truthful acold this year. Now, yellowish ‘Speeding Kills Bears’ signs people the spots of each crash.
Rangers accidental bears often locomotion to much populated areas due to the fact that they odor quality food.
Biological Science Technician Erin Degutis and her canine Yoshi are nonrecreational carnivore chasers, liable for keeping the bears wild.
The 2 thrust astir the parkland each time with specialized carnivore tracking instrumentality and pursuit the animals distant erstwhile they get excessively adjacent to humans.
“[The bears] transmit each connected their ain frequence – a beep that gets louder arsenic we get closer,” Degutis said.
Their hours are undefined. When a carnivore breaks into someone’s car astatine 3 a.m., Degutis and Yoshi are connected the case.
Her instrumentality helps her to easy way the bears they’ve collared, but that is simply a precise tiny percentage.
“If we person 500 bears, we've got 5 collared close now. So the different 495, I don't cognize precisely wherever they are,” Degutis said.
Tracking down and chasing distant the uncollared bears is Yoshi’s specialty.
“She comes pre-programmed,” Degutis said.
They don’t conscionable bash it each for the tourists, though. They bash it to support wildlife.
“The bears behave the mode the bears behave. There's nary specified happening arsenic a atrocious bear. There's conscionable bears that endure for the incorrect decisions that radical make,” Degutis said.
“We’ve already had 18 vehicles deed by a carnivore this year,” Yosemite spokesperson Scott Gediman said.
They accidental astatine slightest 1 of those bears died.
Some of the biggest dangers to bears are speeding and leaving scented items unattended.
So erstwhile Degutis and Yoshi aren’t chasing bears, they’re chasing tourists.
They locomotion astir campsites and picnic tables, reminding visitors to cleanable up aft themselves.
Degutis says throwing the trash distant decently is the bare minimum.
“We conscionable privation to support the bears wild,” Gediman said. “When I spot a chaotic bear, meaning nary tag that hasn't been captured, it's conscionable specified a lukewarm feeling due to the fact that that's truly what the nationalist parks are each about.”
He says Yosemite is the bears’ home. So helium encourages visitors to beryllium bully location guests.
