What If There Were No Bears In Yosemite?

A mother black bear (sow) and her cubs in Yosemite National Park. Photo by Steve Ryan.

We don’t think much about our bears until they’re breaking into your car or stealing food off your picnic table. But what if there were no bears left in Yosemite? What if this wondrous part of Yosemite, the icon of our national parks, were gone?

For years bear poaching has been a HUGE problem in Asia where parts like gallbladders and bile have long been used in traditional medicines and parts can fetch up to thousands of dollars on the black market.

Now as Asian bear populations are on the decline scientists and legislators are worried that profiteers may be looking to America’s Black Bears as a new source or revenue and are urging legislation to protect them before they’re hunted to extinction.

National Geographic: The new legislation would ban any import, export, or interstate commerce in U.S. bear organs and fluids—most notably gallbladders and bile.

These and other bear body parts—like those of tigers, rhinoceros, and other species—have long been used in traditional Asian medicines.

By acting now, the U.S. can prevent a dramatic decline in bear populations like the ones seen in Asia, some conservationists argue.

But other experts say that the new bear-parts legislation misses the mark.

The global bear-parts trade is a “huge problem, especially in Asia,” said Dave Garshelis, a bear biologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and co-chair of the IUCN’s Bear Specialist Group.

In the U.S., 34 states ban trade in bear gallbladders and bile, noted Adam Roberts, vice president of the animal-advocacy nonprofit Born Free USA, who backs the newly proposed bill.

But five states—Maine, Vermont, Idaho, Wyoming, and New York—allow such trade freely.

The rest have a tangled web of statues that sometimes allows the trade of parts taken from bears legally killed elsewhere.

“The majority of states have already banned the trade because they realized that commercialization of wildlife parts leads to poaching,” Roberts said.

“The handful that allow the trade serve as laundering points for bear gallbladders taken elsewhere.”

This confusing network of laws creates an enforcement nightmare, according to Roberts.

“Once you remove a gallbladder from a black bear, it’s impossible to tell where that bear was killed,” he said.

The proposed uniform federal legislation could end that problem, he added.

Currently the bears in Yosemite and other National Parks are protected by Federal Law. But as we’ve seen in recent years poachers don’t respect the limits of the National Parks and often set up tree stands and hunting blinds on park lands where animals are less wary of humans.