It’s time to talk about bears again. Some of you out there that read these pages with any regularity know that occasionally we go on a little sojourn and talk about the Ursus family and what is going on in their world. Bears are a large predator that have always grabbed the attention and imagination of us human carbon based life forms, just like the wolf and mountain lions. If an animal is capable of preying on us, (and bears definitely are) they will get more attention than a deer or a squirrel in our neighborhood.
Here in the east we deal with the black bear (Ursus Americanus) this is a bear we get mixed messages from. Many of see the black bear as a lovable clown that’s just out to get a free meal and have a good time. Watch the news feeds on your favorite channel and all of the barrage of news we get on the computer and that little computer we carry around with us. Hardly a week goes by that we don’t see a black bear in some kind of antics. This past week a medium sized bear had his fifteen minutes of fame by planting himself at a table in the front yard of a house in Florida and helping himself to the candy left out for the kiddies at Halloween. Earlier this fall a bear was captured in Walt Disney World, again in Florida. Several of the rides were closed because of the brouhaha the bear caused in the park, there were reports that the bear was taken away because he was complaining about the long lines at the rides. (OK, I may have made that part up) News reports of black bears in grocery stores, in dumpsters behind restaurants and other businesses, on someone’s back porch, or even in a swimming pool are pretty common.
As noted before we pretty much put up with all this because we see the black bear as a real life Yogi Bear who is just looking for a Pic-a-Nic basket. All of this is fine until it isn’t, a bear is wild animal and doesn’t know or care that you think he is cute. Remember all a bear does most days is just walk around looking for something to eat and try to survive. The black bear can be the cutest thing you ever saw or a goofy clown one minute and a snarling predator the next. Please note that I am not saying this for effect or blow things out of proportion, it is just the way it is.
So as a quick sidebar, how do I know all this? Well, for one thing I spent 36 years as a Conservation Officer and Natural Resources Police Officer with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. I dealt with a lot of bears in many different situations over the years. This was at a time when the bear population was rapidly growing in southern and southeastern West Virginia. We have a lot of bears here and that is in general a good thing, but with it comes all of the issues of having bears around populated areas.
West of the Big Muddy we have an entirely different bear of another color and that is the Grizzly bear. (Ursus Arctos Horribilis) The differences of these bears from the black bear are significant, they are much bigger, are often much more aggressive to us humans, and in general sometimes don’t work and play well with others. If any of you follow me on Facebook you may have seen when I try to report and keep track of the bear attacks by Grizzlies in the western states. To be honest I have lost count in the past year (there have been that many). A typical scenario is someone is hiking, hunting, or fishing in Montana, Wyoming, or Idaho. A grizzly attacks and mauls the person, sometimes the injuries are horrendous sometimes just a few bites (as if you could minimize the attack of a grizzly). There are many reports in these states that people are seeing grizzlies in areas where they have not been seen before, as in the bears are expanding their range.
The grizzlies expanding their range is a big issue as a few years ago the grizzly was taken off of the list for the Endangered Species Act. (ESA) This allowed the states like Montana and Idaho to schedule a limited hunting season and may have taken care of some problem bears. Before the season could happen a Federal Judge ruled that the Fish and Wildlife Service had incorrectly taken the bear off of the ESA and this killed the upcoming bear season. This issue has been in litigation since then and some think the states will never get to have a season for the grizzly as the groups that do not want the grizzly hunted will always find a reason for a lawsuit to block it.
We have a lot of black bears here in the eastern states, there are places in the west where the grizzly seems to be expanding their range. We have a lot of bears right now in the good ‘ol USA. What happens with the bear and how we handle their increased presence remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
(Next week it is time for your annual report of the rut for your deer season!)
Larry Case
www.gunsandcornbread.com     larryocase3@gmail.com