REWILDING BRITAIN - Black Bears to the UK?

when it comes to reintroducing predators to the british landscape the bear is generally at the bottom of the pile and that pile is the big three you know you've got the bear the wolf and the links who we are slowly but surely coming around to the idea of having back in the british landscapes but doesn't a bear just seem like a step too far you know bears are big they have long claws they have powerful jaws didn't one nearly get leo in this video we're going to explore the idea of introducing the black bear to the uk now it wasn't for me native like the brown bear was but i think that there is some arguments that we have to explore that makes it a more likely candidate or perhaps you know bears in the british landscapes really is just a step too far and if we were to see bears in the uk anytime soon how might that look that's what we're going to get into in today's video so it's worth noting that the brown bear lived in the uk a very long time ago we're not exactly sure when but evidence suggests that bears went extinct around 1500 years ago along with many other large land animals that would have formerly been native they would have been here since the last ice age and some may have escaped from roman imports they like to use them for entertainment purposes i mean i don't know what would you do with a bear for entertainment purposes sounds kind of cruel and kind of messed up but you know now and in the past bears have been woven into our culture here in the uk and today the portrayed is almost like this bumbly friendly character that's on the lookout for some berries or maybe some honey or you know they're definitely going to have some goldilocks porridge and does this like friendly almost cuddly portrayal mean that would be more accepting of them if they were reintroduced no i don't necessarily think so but in any event bears were here and they're not here now and you can bet like other large land predators it was habitat loss but hunting especially that caused him to go extinct so why the black bear you know if the black bear was never formally native why is there an argument to introduce it well you know that's a great question so out of the eight bear species i think there is globally there are two which are really the main fit for a uk or two which are more likely to be a better fit for the uk the black and the brown actually quick fun fact for you now the grizzly bear is in fact a brown bear it's actually considered to be a subspecies and the distinction derives from the regions in which they're found and it's the grizzly bears which are actually found inland you know they live on a diet which is more richer in plants but anyway back to the uk and the bears the black and the brown what i want to do now is put them up head to head or muzzle to muzzle and compare their characteristics their traits their sizes and really how they coexist with people around the world first up let's take a look at the size difference the black is on average a much smaller bear than the brown with males averaging around 110 kilograms and females at around 60 kilograms whereas male brown bears if they're feeding on fish and living on the coast they average at around 217 and females are around 150. and i found that even the brown bears which are living inland which were feeding on a more plant-based diet they still average at around 180 kilograms brown bears are just way more chunky and this chunk is spread across a much larger frame ground to shoulder brown bears are about four foot and far taller when standing whereas black bears shoulder height is about two to three foot and you know obviously we need to allow for some variants and sizes you know sometimes you're going to get black bears which are considerably larger than some brown bears but for the most part the black bear is smaller than the brown bear and it doesn't just stop there a brown bear's claws are considerably longer than a black bears and a black bear's jaw well brown bear's drawer is about twice as strong as a black bears so you know given these traits you can probably see why a black bear is more suited to uk landscape and its people but i know what you're thinking like rob this is still a large carnival that does have claws albeit they're smaller it has teeth you know it could still rip through me my dog and my sheep or maybe even my sandwiches when i'm off out on a hike you know it's it's a danger to me well actually i was quite surprised to find this out but around 85 percent of a black bear's diet consists of vegetation and the meat which they do eat is quite often carrion it's animals which have already died and they're feeding off the carcass and it's interesting because black bears don't often rummage around and dig for bulbs and roots and things they much prefer to eat you know the fresh shoots on leaves in the spring and they love berries and they love nuts they love acorns hazelnuts oh and insects they love eating like ants and larvae and bees and of course the bees honey you can't forget the honey and when living near rivers black bears will in fact catch fish they'll catch salmon and they'll catch trout and interestingly black bears they hunt at night they fish at night time because of their black coats they've adapted to this because you know the black coat just sort of gives them a way against the bright sky and you know since black bears hibernate throughout the spring and the summer they have a sole purpose and that is to get as fat as they can and obviously to reproduce but to get as fat as they can with minimal effort i mean why would they spend all day chasing down a deer burning thousands of calories when they could just sit on their bum and eat the right plums which are around them and maybe the honey which is just you know an arms reach away you know you would do that if you were a bed you just chill however if the juicy plums aren't available and you find yourself in a habitat which isn't rich in this abundant plant life like the black bears of labrador in canada now these bears are exceptionally carnivorous and they prey on weak and young caribou you see the thing to understand about bears about the black and the brown bear they are adaptable to their environments and the food which is available within it so you can see why if they were ever released to the uk we'd have to make sure that sure that there was like a rich abundant plant life everywhere apple trees plum trees you know you name it honey just there but we'll get more down that line of thinking in just a second let's continue to compare the black and the brown bears specifically how they interact with people and this is where the black bear actually seems to start looking like a much more likely candidate so throughout north america there are many many encounters with black bears on the daily and most of these are non-aggressive the bear is simply inquisitive you know looking for food which is often quite tasty and readily abundant in areas where people are found and for the most part these encounters are just that they're an encounter a a crossing of paths and when these encounters are aggressive there's usually no attack you know a black bear will try to intimidate through mock charging or like swatting the ground to like let you know that i'm a bear and if you get any closer this could be you it really leads to any kind of injury to people whereas encounters with brown bears they generally do and they are more aggressive because female black bears are nowhere near as protective of their young as brown bears are you know that's not saying that you should get between you know like a mother black bear and her young just definitely do not do that but you know between the two brown bears are way more defensive and in brown bears this is often the main cause for fatal attacks you know if you come between a mother bear and her young i think that's kind of it but with the black bear in cases where encounters do turn aggressive and there is an attack that causes like an injury to a person this is usually in national parks in wild areas where there's like a say like a tourist hot spot or like a pinch point where there's like a small human settlement and it's in these areas where people often feed bears or where you know dust bins are easily accessible to black bears you know some studies actually found in america i forget which state it was at which park but you know they completely limited the feeding of bears and they made all of their dust spins like completely closed off and this drastically dropped the number of of attacks on people but you know this being said black bear attacks do also occur when you're off out deep in a national park say if you're off out on a hike you're fishing you're camping you cross paths with a wild bear that isn't used to seeing humans you know this is when an attack can take place and the facial attacks when they do happen they're almost always predatory you know when the black bear just doesn't know what a human is they see it as a threat they see it as food and you know the thing is when you start looking at these more serious more fatal bear attacks although they're not as common as the brown bear they do still happen i counted through some records and since the year 2000 in north america 30 people have died as a result of black bear attacks now it also had like a little description going with death and almost always the circumstances were when these people were off out deeper in the wilderness they were hiking they were camping you know for the most part they weren't taking place in urban or even semi-urban areas these were bears which weren't used to seeing people you know i have to admit i like it got me i probably looked a little bit too deeply into some of these bear attacks than i should have done but it just left me with this feeling and left me with this question like are bears really necessary do we need them in a british landscape do the positives of having a bear whether it black or brown whatever it is do those positives outweigh this risk of of potentially a brutal fatal attack bears are apex predators and if they were reintroduced to the uk they would initiate the trophic cascades you know through the ecology of fear they would regulate deer populations you know if a bear whether it black or brown was reintroduced to the uk if you know people weren't there the bear would just do just fine there would be enough food for it to eat whether it was just you know deer or you know the leftover mcdonald's at service station been bears would do just fine but you know given this inherent danger that bears possess to people no matter how small with black bears i don't think we'll see truly wild bears to the uk in the next 30 years say there's just too much risk involved unless now hear me out on this one now this isn't true rewarding as such but i think that this is the only way to get creatures like you know the wolf and the bear back in the uk anytime soon you know within the next year to five years it depends how fast we work i'm proposing that we create large fenced enclosures now i'm not talking like a zoo i'm talking like extremely large scale here now i don't know the exact size or even where something like this could take place in the uk and i haven't really thought it through that much but this would really take this would really mean that the uk is like putting their stamp on rewriting and saying you know we're going to make some space for nature it would have to be heavily monitored and studied but the only interaction that humans would have with this super rewiring reserve that's what i'm calling it super rebarding reserve the only interaction that humans would have with this would be if say a bear or a wolf escaped that is when there would be some intervention we would have to essentially create as as a complete ecosystem as we could here in the uk fence in now look this is like you might comment on this video be like rob what are you talking about this is impossible this is entirely hypothetical but it's an idea that i'm going to explore more in a future video i'm going to explore this a little bit more because you know humans have done far more miraculous and crazy things than construct a super rewilding reserve big old fence loads of animals in there bears wolves herbivores different you know like river systems i think it would be really interesting to do something like this kind of reminiscent of ostrava's plus and you know that rewilding project in holland although i don't necessarily think they have predator prey relationships going on in there like with like bears and stuff going on but you know what do you think is the black bear a better candidate for introduction to the uk would you accept that this time tomorrow that the black bear was reintroduced to the uk or is the idea of a bear in a uk landscape just way too crazy it's too far what your thoughts on this super rewarding reserve you know can it happen should it happen just let me know what you're thinking about this whole thing there's been a lot to go through in this video you know creatures like large bears large carnivores it always creates such a great debate so let me know your thoughts down in the comments in the meantime check out the links on the screen now but thank you so much for watching leave curious [Music] you

Channel: Leave Curious

Views: 21,070

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Id: 7RydeErXgzI

Length: 12min 32sec (752 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 16 2022