The Lost Solution for Polar Bears

Someone’s been watching too much “Lost.” Andrew Derocher, a polar bear researcher, has proposed that perhaps we should start airlifting kibble to supplement the polar bear’s diet and save them from certain extinction. After years of having the message “Don’t Feed the Bears” drilled into my head, this just sounds wrong.

While there is no word on whether the kibble would come packaged with the Dharma octagon, the kibble contains “a high level of fish and animal products designed specifically for polar bears” and “should not be fed to other species” (according to one manufacturer). Don’t tell Yogi, because I’m sure that once he hears about it, he’ll be coming over for dinner, assuming he can brave the cold.

Supplemental feeding programs, as they are called, are not that uncommon actually. In the United States, they tend to happen in the central states where hunting and trapping routinely depletes the available stock. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks has regulations on its website for homeowners to participate in feeding programs for the white-tailed deer. Wyoming has been feeding the elk for over a hundred years, a “program” that started when locals started feeding the few elks that were thisclose to extinction. The federal government took over that program in 1912, presumably so the locals could focus on pushing a button every 108 minutes.

One of the big problems with feeding programs is that the animals aren’t stupid and will congregate where the food is dropped. Disease runs rampant where populations are kept artificially high, which is why Texas cautions “Supplemental feeding of deer may be beneficial if the herd is harvested adequately each year and the range is in good condition” (Perkins).

Feeding polar bears presents another challenge that we don’t necessarily see in feeding deer: will the polar bears forget how to hunt? Deer and elk are foragers, and feeding programs run the gamut from putting out feed stands to planting fields of their natural diet. Kibble is much easier to hunt than seals or smoke monsters, so is there a way to produce a food that polar bears will eat, but won’t find as yummy as seal fat? The Washington Forest Protection Association faced a similar dilemma in the early 80s with the black bear. They wanted the bear to continue eating the berries but leave the sapwood tree trunks alone, so they developed pellets to supplement the diet. Again, though, we’re dealing with an opportunistic feeder and not a hunter.

Bear acclimation is a really big issue in National Parks. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who had their car broken into by a hungry black bear in Yosemite because the bear decided it was easier to steal a sandwich than to go find some berries (looking at you Yogi). Depending on how much Mr. Derocher was planning on feeding the bears, we might see that sort of behavior in the great white north.  The other thing to factor in is what that would cost. The Dharma Initiative had a seemingly unending supply of cash to airlift food in for 34 years. But since this project would cost an estimated $32,000 a day, it’s not very practical. Nobody is going to be clamoring to take on that cost.

Or we could just put the polar bears in a cage and teach the combination to get a fish biscuit. That worked for Sawyer.

Sources:
Impacts of the black bear supplemental feeding program on ecology in western Washingtonby GeorgJ. Ziegltrum

Don't feed the (polar) bears By John D.Sutter, CNN

Supplemental Feeding by J.R. Perkins

Debate Rages Over Elk Feeding by Kirk Johnson

Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Supplemental Feeding Regulations

Can We Not Leave the Boys Behind?

Cory and Shawn slack off in the back of the classroom. Topanga’s right up front with her homework done and hand held high to answer the question. Mr. Feeny calls on the slackers, who inform him that they don’t know the answer. If only those boys would get their act together, then they could move to the head of the class.

But is it their fault they don’t have the motivation to keep up in school? A study to be released this week in the Journal of Human Resources asserts that boys are biased against in school starting at the elementary age because they can’t sit still as well as girls. The assertion, as described by Christina Hoff Sommers, is that all things equal, boys will get lower grades than girls by virtue of the fact that girls develop skills of attentiveness, persistence, eagerness to learn, the ability to sit still and work independently before boys do. Consequently, girls have better earlier experiences in school which is why they are going on to earn more college degrees than boys.

Interesting assertion. Anecdotally I can say that I had a much easier time in school than either of my two younger brothers. And neither of them had more trouble in elementary school than when they had a teacher I had first. And as we learn more about learning styles and even the value in recess we are starting to see more collaborative and interactive lesson plans. Sommers goes on to talk about Aviation High School in New York and some other school ideas that are being tried out. Even on Boy Meets World, we see that Mr. Feeny gets through to Shawn and Cory and Eric not so much in the classroom, but through one-on-one application in the Matthews’ backyard.

Okay, so if we assume the assertion that girls essentially get favorable treatment by teachers from the get-go, how do we change that? Is it simply a matter of giving boys a chance to be boys? I think the problem goes deeper than that. Of the six teachers I had in elementary school, exactly one of them was a man. My brothers had a few more male teachers than I, but their early education was still minimally influenced by y-chromosomes.

If boys had men as teachers, perhaps some of this female bias would evaporate. Men, after all, used to be boys and would probably understand how to reach them better. I know that in my elementary school career, there were female teachers with the reputation of not liking boys, and it sounds like this is true. So maybe we should spend some time recruiting men to the classroom to balance this. This is not to minimize the other suggestions that Sommers outlines. We absolutely should make allowances for all learning styles. And, for heaven’s sake, we need to make recess and playtime a priority (studies show that it’s important). But, at the same time, it seems that maybe we need some men in there helping to work on these solutions. 

Mr. Feeny helped Cory, Shawn, Eric and Topanga get into college and presumably their degrees. I know that was television, but would a Ms. Feeny have been as valuable a character?