Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary

While working on my paper...I became distracted by this! I was searching for information on bear biology and found a link to this website - http://www.americanbear.org/ I became instantly curious, because what I found was a wildlife sanctuary, housing a majority of black bears, not far from my hometown of Minneapolis! At first glance, I was not sure about the sanctuary, I wondered how much land was available to the bears and why this sanctuary was in place, what was its philosophy?

There is a great story behind the founder, Vince Shute. I kinda wish I could have set him up on a date with my grandma. Vince Shute was born in 1913, he worked at his family farm until the depression hit and the cows had to be sold. He then decided to work in the Northwoods, to become a logger, living in the woods among wildlife. Due to fear of and annoyance by the black bears food stealing habits, Vince and his fellow loggers shot and killed any bears they encountered. As Vince had spent time around these bears, he felt they were not a threat and did not need to be killed. His quote was, "The bears weren't mean, only hungry." He became passionate about creating a respectful coexistence between humans and black bears. Vince and the Sanctuary make it very clear that black bears can and will attack; humans are more vulnerable when expressing fear or being careless about leaving food out that bears can easily get to.

The sanctuary's land stretches out for 360 acres. Up to eighty black bears and other wildlife visit the sanctuary from time to time, some staying longer than others. It appears that while at the sanctuary the bears carry out "normal" bear behavior, although at times there are hundreds of visitors to the sanctuary in one day, and I'm sure this affects the bears behavior. They offer free volunteer and internship opportunities, providing a space for people to observe and partake in "unobtrusive research." The sanctuary does provide food for the bears, in the form of fruit and nuts, which volunteers place in feeding areas. It appears that there are not any bears that rely soley on the food from the sanctuary, as they all leave the sanctuary for days at a time, most likely to hunt.

At first I was wary of this sanctuary, but I really like the mission and philosophy that it presents. It gives students, researchers, and others a chance to observe bear behavior without interfering with them physically by tagging or drugging them. I do not agree with the feeding of the bears. The bears are leaving the sanctuary to hunt and are able to find food on their own, I do not feel that feeding them extra food is necessary. Although, without the food offering, the bears would not come to the sanctuary for the paying visitors to see them from the viewing deck and for the photographers to get images of bears in their "natural habitat." The people who run the sanctuary seem to have compassion for these bears and truly want to help them. It does not seem as though they are becoming too physically close to the bears, they just simply observe them and care for their wellbeing. And what lucky bears to have a poop-scooping service, wouldn't get that out in the wild!

Can you sense my ambivalence?