People should avoid scaring away mother bears by staying away from their cubs, the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau said on Thursday, after several Formosan black bear cubs were recently separated from their mothers.
In 1989, Formosan black bears were listed as an endangered species. Experts have estimated that there are 300 to 600 Formosan black bears in Taiwan today.
Commercial hunting once threatened their survival, the bureau said.
Photo provided by Hualien Forest District Office
In July last year, a bear cub was rescued at Nanan Waterfall (南安瀑布) in Hualien County’s Jhuosi Township (卓溪), but was released back into the wild in April.
On Monday, locals reported that they spotted another bear cub wandering alone on a highway near the waterfall.
Local Aborigines patroling the area had not observed the second cub, and images captured by the bureau’s auto-trigger camera found that the cub had reunited with its mother, the bureau said.
Images showed that the cub’s mother was not far from where the cub was spotted, it said.
People should not get too close to a solitary cub or even capture it, otherwise its mother might not return, the bureau added.
On July 27, another bear cub was found entering a village in Taitung County’s Haiduan Township (海端) and was chased by two dogs.
To guarantee its safety, bureau officials put the cub in a cage and prepared to release it as soon as its mother arrived.
Noting that human encounters with Formosan black bears are increasing, especially in eastern Taiwan, the bureau urges the public to learn more about the species so that they can be better protected.
Contrary to popular belief, bears appear at lower elevations not because their mountain habitat has been destroyed, but because low-lying hills are part of their natural habitat, it said.
As forest ecology improves, the bears might increasingly appear at lower elevations near human dwellings, the bureau said.
People should learn to live around bears, a lesson that involves zoology, sociology and even some political science, the bureau said, encouraging Taiwanese to prepare themselves for “a nation with bears.”
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