Mother bears use human shields to protect cubs, study finds
Researchers come to conclusion after tracking 26 mother bears using GPS technology between 2005 and 2012
Brown bear mothers in a Swedish forest use human “shields” against murderous males, overcoming their own fear to raise defenceless cubs near villages where hunters live, researchers said on Wednesday.
Some young bear mothers have taken to living closer to humans for the duration of the mating – a period which sends male bears, called boars, into frenzies of lust-fuelled cub killing.
Motherly instinct, in other words, seems to trump sex drive.
Bears in general avoid areas close to humans
While sows grin and bear the potentially threatening human proximity for the sake of their offspring, boars continue to give the two-legged species a very wide berth.
“Bears in general avoid areas close to humans,” said Sam Steyaert of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, who co-authored the study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“Also, after the mating season, females with cubs change their behaviour” and go back to avoiding humans, who hunt bears in the forest during a designated season.
Male brown bears kill cubs to trigger oestrus – a period of sexual receptivity – in females who would otherwise have come into heat only after raising their cubs to independence.