King returning to his forest

In Louisiana, the black bear is king of the forest. It’s a kingdom that almost lost its king, but a few dedicated individuals and government agencies are bringing the black bear back.
Avoyelles Parish is in a “growth area” for the black bear recovery program. The numbers are increasing, but they are not as plentiful as in some other areas of the state, such as Tensas Parish to the north and along the coast in the south.
Maria Davidson, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries large carnivore program manager, said the department recently worked with federal officials to conduct a “hair snare” program in Avoyelles.
Baited areas were rigged with barbs to gather hair samples from the bears.
“We will extract DNA from the hair sample,” she said. The DNA will be able to differentiate the bears, so that one hungry bear is not being counted multiple times at different sample sites.
“We can repeat the study in three to five years to see what kind of population growth we have,” Davidson said. “We will catalog these samples and will have that back next spring,” she continued. “We will have a finished report on the study by summer.”
The Avoyelles black bear population is in a good habitat and is not stressed by factors such as a high population density or food shortage.
“What this means is the bears in Avoyelles have a high survival rate,” Davidson said. “The mother bears are raising all of their cubs to maturity.”
The downside in Avoyelles is that female bears may miss one or more breeding cycles because there are so few prospective mates.
The mother will have one to three cubs every other year. Cubs will stay with the mother for about 18 months before going off on their own. Bears are not a social creature, like wolves or lions, so there are no large groups of bears in any one area.

NOT FRIENDLY
Most people think of bears as friendly, lovable and good-natured -- thanks in large part to Teddy bears, Yogi Bear and Baloo the Bear.
TV personality Stephen Colbert calls them “Godless killing machines.”
The real bear lies somewhere between the two. The male black bear will weigh about 300 pounds -- much smaller than his Western cousins, the brown, grizzly and Klondike. The female weighs 150 to 200 pounds.
In some states, like Colorado, bears are pushed by hunger and encroaching human development to come into contact with people. Because a bad interaction between a bear and a man has such terrible consequences, bears are given “one strike.” The errant bear is captured and relocated.
If he comes back to town a second time, authorities have to make sure there’s no third. The Louisiana black bear is an endangered animal, but contact with humans is dangerous for both parties.
Davidson said there is less likelihood of that happening here than on the coast because there are fewer bears and there are less areas where a town encroaches into bear habit.
“Bears prefer to avoid people,” Davidson said. “If nature provides everything they need, they don’t travel into town -- yet. It could happen in the future, and if it does we will issue guidelines on how to discourage or avoid attracting bears.”
The first possible threat would be food shortage. If there is low production of acorns and other food, bears may have to move elsewhere.
If there is a flash flood in their habitat, they could be driven closer to civilization.

DRIVEN BY HUNGER
“Bears are driven by a search for food -- not searching for your dogs, cats and children,” Davidson said. “They come to your house because they smell that you cooked hamburgers on the patio last night or that you have cat food on the back porch. That is why they come to the house.”
She said the public must understand that saving the black bear from extinction “is a process. It cannot happen quickly. It is making a comeback through the efforts of state, federal and private landowners.”
Brett Wehrle, National Wildlife Refuge manager in Avoyelles, said Avoyelles “may not be a stronghold for the black bear recovery program, but it is an area that has shown a growth in the bear population."
Bear sightings on Grand Cote and Lake Ophelia are still not commonplace, but have increased in recent years. Wehrle said several of the “hair snares” were set up on the reserves.

NO GOOD ESTIMATE
He said the program has been in use in Tensas for a few years. There are about 300-400 bears there.
“We do not have nearly that many here, but we are trying to monitor the bear population,” he said. “We do not have a good estimate yet.”
Most of the bears in Avoyelles were relocated from the Tensas area “but they are all Louisiana black bears. There have been no Arkansas bears or bears from other states released here.”
State officials are serious about protecting the bear from would-be “big game hunters.”
And if you get caught with a bear on your truck, don’t try to say you thought it was a hog. The LDWF has posters that warn hunters that “hogs and bears look alike. Know your target!”
Because the bear is an endangered species, it is against state and federal laws to kill one -- even by accident. The kill can cost the hunter up to $100,000, loss of hunting privileges and/or jail time.

REWARD OFFERED
The state pays a cash reward to those who provide information leading to the arrest of anyone killing bears.
The LDWF poster states that its goal is to “have the Louisiana black bear removed from the threatened list and to have a regulated bear hunting season in Louisiana. However, illegal killing of black bears hampers this effort and could delay the day when the Louisiana black bear can become a legal game animal once again.
“Hunters are urged to support bear conservation efforts and report illegal kills. This support will aid recovery of the Louisiana black bear and help bring about the day when legal bear hunting will once again occur in Louisiana.”
For more information on the state’s bear recovery program, contact the LDWF at 337-948-0255 or the Black Bear Conservation Coalition at 225-763-5425.