Sun, May 31, 2026 page3

• Yushan National Park warns of black bear encounters

  VIGILANCE: If hikers spot a bear, they should leave as quickly as possible without taking any photos and be careful of disturbing cubs in particular, the park said

  • By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter
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  The Yushan National Park Headquarters yesterday called on hikers to be careful of bear activity following incidents of people being chased by mother bears with cubs around Taiwan’s Yuli and Jhuosi mountains.

  The headquarters also received reports of bear activity around the section of the Southern Cross-Island Highway within the park’s southern area in Kaohsiung’s Taoyuan District, it said.

  People encountering Formosan black bears should remain calm and refrain from disturbing the animals, and leave promptly and quietly without taking photos, the headquarters said.

  

  A black bear is caught on camera near the Southern Cross-Island Highway in Yushan National Park in an undated photograph.

  Photo courtesy of the Yushan National Park Headquarters

  Those who spot bear cubs should be particularly careful, as mothers tend to be protective of their young and consider humans a threat, it said, adding that human activity might lead to mothers being separated from their cubs.

  The headquarters called on visitors to the park’s forests not to travel alone and to avoid hiking in the early morning or at dusk.

  Visitors can borrow bear bells from the park’s Nanan Visitor Center and bring bear spray for emergency use, it said.

  People are advised to seal food waste, given that the Formosan black bear is an opportunistic omnivore that might be attracted to such waste, the it said.

  Meanwhile, Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan (CET) last week held a lecture inviting the authors of the book When Bears Come to the Village to talk about their experiences of interacting with Formosan black bears around their indigenous communities.

  The book was written by the Bunun people in collaboration with the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, recounting encounters between indigenous people and five Formosan black bears from 2019 to 2022.

  Langus Lavalian, an author and member of Taiwan’s indigenous Bunun community, said that in Bunun mythology, Formosan black bears helped the people by eating millet that kept sprouting up.

  Therefore, Bunun culture has a taboo against killing Formosan black bears, especially after millet has been sown, as the animals not only taught the Bunun people to cherish food, but could also consume all the millet, she said.

  Ciang Langus, Lavalian’s husband, said that the boundaries between human communities and bear habitats have become blurred.

  Farmland in forests has become fragmented as some plots were abandoned while others continued to be cultivated, he said.

  That has resulted in increasing numbers of wild animals, such as muntjacs, macaques and wild boars, intruding into the living environments of mountain villagers, Langus said.

  Intrusions by Formosan black bears have become so frequent over the past few years that one villager stopped farming his sweet persimmon orchard, he said.

  Citing the example of a baby bear nicknamed Mulas, Lavalian said the animal was spotted lingering on a road in the Bunun village of Tuapuu in Taitung County’s Haiduan Township (海端) in 2019.

  Mulas was rescued and reported to local authorities as villagers worried that she would be struck by vehicles or bitten by dogs, she said.

  She was named after the village chief and considered a daughter of the village, Lavalian said, adding that the whole village gathered to say farewell when Mulas was released back into the wild.

  CET member Lai Pei-lien said human-bear conflicts arise from overlap between wildlife activity areas and human living spaces.

  The human-bear relationship in Taiwan should not be addressed in the same way as bear incidents in Japan, given that Formosan black bear activity largely occurs within the living spaces of indigenous communities, she said.

  Therefore, learning about local indigenous cultures, customs and everyday practices is as important as understanding bear behavior when tackling human-bear conflicts, Lai said.
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