Bears in the Backyard

That’s what wildlife authorities want to know.

The authorities say a female bear was found dead on Three Rivers Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Concordia Parish on Sunday, Dec. 20. The bear was identified as one of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) research bears equipped with a transmitter collar.

The bear was shot, making it the fourth illegally killed bear on a WMA to date for the 2009-10 hunting season.

“The loss of another adult female in her prime is a significant loss to bear recovery,” noted state wildlife secretary Robert J. Barham. “Setbacks like these are not only frustrating and costly, but they may also delay removal of the Louisiana black bear from the Endangered Species List.”

Uh, isn’t it clear why you shouldn’t feed bears?

Seems that way to me. I can think of a few reasons: it’s unsafe to you; the bears may come to rely on you; and it’s bad for the bears.

Case in point: A man allegedly got hurt by a bear by feeding it in Florida, and now he’s in trouble with the law and the bear was trapped and killed by authorities.

Black bears, a protected species in Texas, may be making a comeback there, according to a newspaper report.

The report in the Courier of Montgomery County says bears used to be common in the area: “In the 1800s there is documentation that a good hunter could harvest perhaps a hundred in his or her lifetime. But from 1950 until about 2000, they were rarely seen in east Texas.”

And now they may be traveling over from Louisiana, or maybe Arkansas or Oklahoma: “Estimates on the number of black bears in East Texas vary. Some say as few as 20 are currently roaming this part of the state. Others say there could be as many as 100.”

South Korea is trying to reintroduce Asiatic black bears, and here’s a great video—thoughtful commentary, lots of historical context, and awesome photography—about attempts to reintroduce Asiatic black bears.

Plenty of states have policies to euthanize bears after they break into homes, or attempt to do so.

That’s just what happened to a bear near Shreveport, Louisiana, as well as one in Veneta, Oregon.

About the Oregon bear:

State wildlife officials determined that because the bear was hanging around a house and knocking open a door, the bear was a potential threat to human safety.

The meat from the “carcass was salvaged and donated to help feed the hungry,” according to the story.

You don’t want to do this, for your own safety and for the bear’s. Yes, here’s a video with people tossing food to a bear.

The clue something was amiss? When a wildlife officer in Pennsylvania spotted a guy with a truckload of pastries.

Here’s what the wildlife officer said:

As we were about one week away from the opening of the statewide bear season, I thought that something illegal might be underway. Being that we were so close to bear season, seeing that person drive by with an unusual amount of pastries was like watching an individual go down a row of parked vehicles testing each handle to see if it were open. Something just didn’t seem right.

As it turns out, the guy killed a 707-pound bear, and it was the largest harvested in the state’s hunting season.

Two guys are driving along the highway. They see a dead bear. Roadkill.

What do they do?

They take it home to cut it into steaks.

That’s the gist of a story from the News-Journal, in Florida.

According to the story: “Two Orange City men who picked up a dead Florida black bear from Interstate 4, skinned it and cut it up into steak-sized chunks, quickly regretted their decision to butcher the threatened species, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission official said Monday.” The official noted: “It’s against the law to do that. You can’t possess bear parts in Florida. Black bears are a threatened species.”

But the men apparently realized their error after hearing a news report and turned themselves in to the authorities.

Here’s a video with details on denning behavior.

The Miami Herald website is running a story about the possibility of a black bear hunting season in Florida, “Black bear hunting proposed for Panhandle.” The “proposal,” it seems, is actually one from the vice president of the Florida Bear Hunters Association.

According to the story, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Lt. Stan Kirkland said officials “might not buy” the idea of a hunt. He said:

“Even though population has increased, we could not sustain hunting. It is not a biological decision only; there are other related factors, such as it being public-supported or not. There is a sociological issue here. Some citizens would be very angry at opening up a bear season regardless of the population number. This is because they view these animals of the wild as being cute like teddy bears and do not want to see them killed.”

Interesting language there—that is, the official’s sensitivity to the fact that deciding on a hunt isn’t just about the bear population, but about various sociological and cultural issues, such as residents’ attitudes toward bears.