A bear of a day ( for Todd's Friday entertainment)

[Darin Clark]

The bear population in NW PA has increased drastically in the past years. We've gone from the occasional sighting to over 20 complaints last year. This year is going to be no exception. I got the first two complaints the first week of April. The first step is generally to try to illuminate the food source that is attracting them, but sometimes it is best to relocate the bear. I set two traps last week without much success. I got a call from one of the home owners on Wednesday saying the bear had been back and the trap had been set off, but the door didn't latch. I checked the trap, setting it off a dozen times and it worked properly every time. Not sure what went wrong. I put new bait in the trap and hoped he would return, which he did. This time he did not get away.

We use colvert traps. The back has a door that opens and the bait and trigger are at the front.

This was the calmest bear I've every had in a trap. He never moved from this position the entire time.

I've started shooting the bear with a dart gun as opposed to using a jab stick. I've broken too many jab sticks. The dart gun I have now can be dial way down and works very well at a range of a foot or two. Generally I put the barrel of the gun just into the trap and shoot. This guy had his butt tight against the door and wouldn't move. He didn't even move when the dart hit him. I'm not sure I got a good discharge of the drug, because after 15 minutes, he was still wide awake. I gave a second dose that I was able to just inject with a syringe. Again, he never moved.

Once the bear in immobilized, we remove him from the trap and process for scientific data. Even if we don't trap nuisance bears, we are required to trap a certain number for research data. His eyes are covered and the noise is kept to a minimum to lessen the stress. He is fully awake, just can't move. We check the bear for mange, which we have problems with in parts of the state, and take a chest measurement to get an estimated weight. This bear measured 44 inches which equates to 284 pounds.

The bear gets a metal tag in both ears.

A tooth is then removed for age data. It is cross sectioned and they count the rings like you would a tree. The preferred tooth is the first premolar on the top which is the little tooth directly behind the canine. Not the best pictures, but you should get the idea

Once that is complete he is given a reversal agent. If given intravascular, he will be up and moving in about 10 minutes.

You gotta feel sorry for them, but it is amusing to watch them staggering like a drunken sailor. We hang around long enough to make sure they are up a moving well enough that they aren't going to have problems.

 

[tod osier]

Very cool.

At our state (CT DEEP) hunter appreciation days the bear guys had their gear out on display and Gus got to shoot one of their dart guns (.22 fired) at a bear target. He thought it was cool, but I thought it was VERY COOL!

Had a bear issue this past fall - it went from "cool a bear" to "cool two bears" to "whoa they are getting really close" to "whoa they won't leave" really fast.

 

[Phil Eager]

I remember the first black bear I saw. We were huntinif the Delaware River just below the gap on the Jersey side,
I said that's one big Lab over there
He said son that's no lab.

Woof.

The NY Post says Turkeys are a Nuisance in Teaneck today, It's too bad the houses are so close together. We could have a ball.
phil

 

[Rick L]

dog breeder

decoy carver

wildlife dentist


where do you find the time


LOL-


it's nice to see the process Darin - thanks

 

[TimJ]

That is cool! Thanks for sharing that with us.

Tim

 

[Carl]

Cool stuff. We have a growing bear population down here in Alabama, sightings are increasing every year.

When I was growing up in PA, I remember watching outdoors shows on WNEP 16 where Gary Alt was going into dens in winter to sedate females and measure cubs. We had a good population of bears back then in Wayne County but my understanding is that its even larger now.

 

[Jeff Reardon]

We've got plenty of bears--said to be the most in the lower 48--and they show up in some surprisingly settled places. This one was denning in sight of a suburban neighborhood.

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/04/...-spend-the-winter-in-residential-subdivision/

We seem to have far less problems with nuisance bears, presumably due to lower human densities in our best bear habitat.

I grew up in Maine when bears were scarcer. My sister saw one on a summer camping trip, but I missed it. My first was near the Delaware Water Gap, too. Hiking on the AT, heard voices coming toward me, saw a big black shape cross the road and thought it was a Newfie until I was close enough to smell it.

 

[Al Hansen]

Darin,
Great thread. Sure enjoyed this. How old does a boar have to be when it becomes territorial? In your neck of the woods if you capture a boar how far away does it get transported to for his first release? What happens to the animal if it is captured back in its old territory the second time?

Do these traits happen with sows? How adaptable are black bears becoming in coping with the encroaching human population in PA within its territory/area?

One of the spots where I hunt ducks along the Rio Grande had a bear that a local beekeeper was having problems with so Game and Fish did set a similar trap like you use. They were successful, also. Thanks
Al

 

[Jon Yenulonis]

Great thread Darin! My wife even enjoyed it.

Speaking of my wife, we take a trip every year to central Virginia to visit the many local wineries and hike up in the Shenandoah National Park to look for bears. We usually go around the end of July early August during their mating season and the time when they move around a lot.

We've seen plenty. One, especially prolific year, we stopped counting after forty sightings! We never seem to get tired of seeing them.

Now around where I live, in NE Ohio, bears are a rare sight. However, several years ago we had one in our yard a few times over the course of the summer. The first time we saw him, he was here for about ninety minutes and totally cleaned out our bird feeders destroying several in the process. Rumor has it of late, there is another around these days, but we have yet to actually see it.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of "our" bear. My wife wast trying to take a picture of it, but I stepped in front of her. Neat shot.

Again, thanks for posting this story and pics.

Jon

 

[Darin Clark]

Al,


Cubs leave their mother at a year and a half and become sexually mature around 3 years old which is when they would start to be territorial. During the breading season boars will travel outside their normal territory which results in conflict. This male had some wounds on his left side just in front of his hip. I saw 4 or 5 puncture wounds that he likely got fighting. One was still open and infected. I put some triple antibiotic ointment on the wound to try to help it heal. I trapped a boar two years ago that had a broken and very infected canine tooth. I have seen bears break a tooth in the trap, but to my knowledge he had never been in a trap before. I moved this guy about 22 air miles. There is a large remote game lands that I release them in. If he were to return, which is definitely possible, and be caught again, I would move him a greater distance getting him to the other side of the Alleghany River. They say for a 90% chance of them not returning they should be moved 80-100 air miles. Sows are also territorial, but the territory is a lot smaller.


Our bears are very adaptable to human populations. We have bears in very populated areas. They will become very indifferent to humans being around and have had them even den under porches. When they start losing their fear of humans is when they can become a big problem, to the point of trying to enter houses to get food. Under very rear occasions it does become necessary for a bear to be put down due to nuisance problems. I attribute some of the increase in complaints last year to an increase in the number of bee keepers. Electric fence is very effective in keeping bears out, but I had a bunch of new bee keepers last year that didn't have their hives fenced.

 

[Tom Wall]

Oh...beekeepers just love bears! And bears will keep checking to see if the battery is still charged. They love honey for energy and brood for a protein shot.
As Jon mentioned bear sightings are increasing in Ohio. I don't have hives anywhere close to where bears have been sighted so far.
Tom

 

[Al Hansen]

Thanks for what you did, Darren. I appreciated those answers.
Al

 

[TIM SCHLOSS]

Great info and photos Darin. Being a live long resident of NW PA the increase in Bears is very noticeable. You had to travel to Warren County [the "mountains" as we called it] to hope to see one. Now seeing one close to town is getting pretty common. Still an exciting thing for me when you spot one. Thanks for sharing it Darin.

 

[Eric Patterson]

Darin, he looks so cute and docile sitting in that trap but imagine things would go wrong in a split second were it not for the tranquilizer. Neat post!



Carl, from what I read there has been a stable black bear population in the Mobile Delta for many years. It's in North Alabama where sightings are on the rise as TN populations are heading southward. Speaking of sightings I kid you not that I saw a cougar a few years back near the Flint River in Alabama. I was visiting Wally (CEO of the company I work for) at his property in Madison County. He has several thousand acres including about 2 miles of Flint river frontage and that is only a small percentage of an even larger area that is quite remote and sees little human traffic throughout the year. We were several miles from his lodge when the starter went out on his Jeep. He's nearly 80 so I volunteered to walk back to his lodge and get my truck to tow his Jeep back. On the walk back in a heavily wooded area, adjacent to a swamp, I saw a cougar cross the dirt road I was walking on about 75 yards in front of me. Unmistakable. Tail was almost as long as the body. It walked across the road as if unaffected by my presence. State Officials say we do not have a cougar population but I know there was at least one in the state on that summer day.

 

[Carl]

Based on what I understand from our biologists, the population from the Delta is expanding outwards and others are moving in from the TN/GA mountains. I could see where in 20 years, a bear sighting anywhere in AL will be almost common.

Mountain lions are a touchy subject. All the game cams out there and there are no confirmed pics in AL yet. And not a single road kill in the last 30 years (as opposed to bear car strikes which seem to happen every couple of years). But then every year we get reports like yours of someone who's seen a couger. Official position is that we don't have a wild population.

 

[Tim McEntire]

My wife showed me a pic on facebook of one that was hit on the road near Cambridge Springs. Did you pick that one up or out of your district ?

 

[Brandon Yuchasz]

Very cool post. I didn't realize that they were awake and paralyzed during the health checks.

We obviously have lots and lots of bears where I live. Lucky for us and the bears we don't have a lot of people so there are not to many problem bears.

 

[John Unruh]

If you all like we have way to many bears in Ontario Canada,maybe we can ship you some if you like! You see the spring bear hunt was cancelled a number of years ago ( by the way biologists were never asked about the population to my understanding) it was a pure political decision brought forth by the antis! So end result , we had a tremendous population when the hunt was cancelled , now we have a much bigger population, huge amount of bear complaints so huge that the authorities will not respond to complaints ,so people take it into their own hands , now they are bringing back the spring hunt ,so go figure ! Bears may be fun to watch but they are still bears ,very unpredictable!

 

[Darin Clark]

My wife showed me a pic on facebook of one that was hit on the road near Cambridge Springs. Did you pick that one up or out of your district ?
Out of my area. I believe the person who hit it was going to buy the hide. I heard it was over 500lbs.

 

[Ray]

Relocated bears coming back...here in Anchorage, AK there was a problem young male black bear that was trapped a couple of times and moved to the back side of the military base (10 miles). Came back to the trash cans of the hillside in a few days. ADFG moved him to the Kenai wildlife refuge across Cook Inlet. Took about a month for him to get back to town across Turnagain Arm. He did not live much longer after that.

The local waste company and the city have worked together to create bear resistant cans and enforcement policy for areas of town next to wildlands. The cans were tested at the zoo with both brown and black bears and didn't fail. The problem that comes from this is the bears head further into town if they can't get into the trash cans at homes next to the wildlands. Some bears learn the calendar for pick up day, too.

Then the city changed their rules about residential livestock and allowed chicken, rabbit, and goat keeping in lower classes of residential lots. Now the kids get to hear a rabbit scream as its being eaten by a bear. Fun times.

ADFG even publishes guidance on bird feeders and dog food being left out during bear season.

The State has also rebuilt salmon runs in two stream systems through town, which naturally has brought bears right into the middle of town in July and August. Big Wild Life indeed.

The amount of people that complain about bears in their yards drives me nuts some summers. This is bear country. Adapt or stay in Seattle or where ever you came from.