Bears can be cultural keystone species even where they’re not hunted

In Churchill, Manitoba, polar bears serve as a cultural keystone species for a mixed Indigenous/non-Indigenous community by providing the focus for an international tourism market based on viewing the bears.

Cultural keystone species are animals or plants that have exceptional significance to particular peoples, usually because they provide food or other important materials that help define cultural identities.

This paper adapts and expands this concept to include species that people do not consume but are nonetheless exceptionally important to their well-being and identity.

Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.

We examine how grizzly bears and polar bears, two high-profile species that often serve as key symbols for conservation efforts, are also culturally important to Indigenous Peoples and rural communities even where they’re not hunted.

Grizzly bears in coastal British Columbia are closely linked to many Indigenous Peoples (including the Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk), Kitasoo/Xai’xais, and Nuxalk First Nations), where they are close relatives; serve as a link to the spiritual world; play an important role in crests and language; are featured in songs, dances, and stories; and are central to the identity and livelihoods of individuals, families, Chiefs, and Nations.

Churchill, Manitoba, provides another example, where polar bears serve as a cultural keystone species for a mixed Indigenous/non-Indigenous community by providing the focus for an international tourism market based on viewing the bears.

Recognizing the beyond-ecological importance of these species could be an important step in furthering reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people by increasing cross-cultural understanding and providing a common focus for conservation efforts.

How people interact with these animals varies across places, however, so efforts to recognize and conserve cultural keystone species will probably need to be different in different areas, and many questions remain about how that can be done fairly and effectively.

Read the paper —Grizzly and polar bears as nonconsumptive cultural keystone species by Douglas Clark, Kyle Artelle, Chris Darimont, William Housty, Clyde Tallio, Douglas Neasloss, Aimee Schmidt, Andrew Wiget, and Nancy Turner.