Rising bear population creates problems for humans and animals (Bears now near Grand Rapids)

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Wildlife officials say the state's bear population is on the rise, increasing the number of southern Michigan residents who have experienced a close encounter of the bruin kind.

Sharon Kanouse remembers the night a black bear wandered through her Stanton yard, pulled down one of her bird feeders and proceeded to lounge on the lawn eating its newfound snack. It was June 20, and the second time the young intruder had visited the home.

"It was fun to watch, but also kind of scary," said Kanouse, who managed to shoot photographs and video of the bear.

Residents are reporting an increasing number of bear sightings, which state officials say indicates the Michigan bear population is growing and healthy. The population is now estimated at 15,000 to 19,000 bears, up from about 12,000 in the late 1980s.

"This has been our busiest year," said Tim Reis, the state Department of Natural Resources' bear specialist and part of a team developing a strategy for dealing with citizens' calls about southern Michigan bears. "These are young males that are being pushed out by their mothers. They are looking for a place where they can live. We've had a lot of reports from different areas."

Bear/human confrontations pose a challenge for wildlife managers who fear that instead of shooting photos, some residents may resort to shooting bullets. Killing a bear is only legal in Michigan during the hunting season.

"Ninety-nine percent of these encounters involve a bear getting into trash or into a bird feeder," Reis told The Grand Rapids Press for a Sunday story. "I won't say there is no danger, but we have lots of people living with bear around the state and the incidence of bear attacks is extremely rare. You are more likely to get bitten by your dog.

"We want people to understand they can live with bear," he said. "People assume they need to be concerned. But black bear only confront people when there is no choice, like when they are backed into a corner or if someone has the harebrained idea to hand-feed it."

But the increased contact has officials concerned about the changing face of what most people consider "bear country."

"The truth of the matter is we don't know what traditional black bear range is any more. It used to be described as dense, forested areas, but we now find them on the north end of Grand Rapids and in cities like Charlevoix," Reis said.

Two years ago, state wildlife officials began to develop uniform guidelines for dealing with black bear in southern Michigan. Biologists hope to allay public fears, while informing people how they can reduce the likelihood of a visit.

"Things haven't been as smooth as we would wish," Reis said. "Even now, there are some differences. Up north, they have it down, but in southern Michigan we are working it out."

The new guidelines, which are being field-tested this year, are expected to result in faster responses from state and local agencies charged with handling bear incidents. In cases of aggressive or dangerous animals, the bear is put down.

State wildlife officials say they are gauging public sentiment and want to know how comfortable southern Michigan residents can become living with their new neighbors. If not, the state faces the question of expanding the bear hunting season to control the southern Michigan population.

Art Liberty, a 61-year-old Vestaburg resident, used his .32-caliber handgun to scare away a 250-pound bear recently.

"I know he's afraid of people, and I don't have a problem with him living life in the woods," Liberty said. "Beehives and bird feeders don't bother me. Those can be replaced.

"But when it gets around areas like this, for safety sake, I would probably say bear hunting should be allowed in order to keep the population real low or zero."

They are now south of Mt Pleasant.

"Ninety-nine percent of these encounters involve a bear getting into trash or into a bird feeder,"

Common sense.

32-caliber handgun
Wouldn't that just make the bear mad? I agree with him otherwise though.

or if someone has the harebrained idea to hand-feed it."

One big tourist area up North is Tahquanemon(sp) Falls in the UP. There are bears up there. Some idiots were feeding the bears. They ran out of food. The bear followed the people back to their car and started jumping up and down on the car. Anyone that feeds the bears(outside of baiting for hunting) is a dumbass.

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In PA it's bobcats. I wonder whether they eat housepets?

Midstate bobcats booming

Roadway toll reflects swing in wild felines

Harrisburg Patriot News, Sunday, July 13, 2003

Once thought to be se verely limited by its habitat need for the wild, open spaces of northern Pennsylvania, bobcats have been showing up with increased regularity in many part of the midstate.

The latest specimen apparently was hit and killed on Crums Mill Road at the I-81 overpass. According to deputy wildlife conservation officer Larry Mummert, who retrieved the cat's body, it was the fourth dead bobcat he has picked up in that area of Dauphin County.

The same spot, which seems to provide a fairly unbroken, wooded route from Blue Mountain to the north, also accounted for the first road-killed black bear in Dauphin County in the late 1970s.

Dauphin County's bobcat population is "slowly increasing, especially in the little woodlots," said Mummert, noting that suburban residents are beginning to see the normally secretive cats in their back yards.

And Dauphin County is not alone in the midstate when it comes to increasing bobcat numbers, according to Matthew Lovallo, furbearer biologist with the commission.

"All indicators suggest that bobcat populations continue to expand throughout Pennsylvania," he said. "Current survey methods indicate steady increases in bobcat population density and continued geographic expansion of bobcat populations, particularly in the south-central and a few southwest counties."

When the commission began collecting information from road-killed bobcats in the early 1980s, initially those reports were sporadic and limited to the north-central and a few southwestern counties.

By the late '80s, an increasing trend was apparent and the number of counties from which roadkills were being reported was increasing annually.

Over the past 10 years, the numbers of reported bobcat roadkills have been increasing at more than 10 percent annually.

From 1985 to 1990, WCOs provided reports of 92 bobcat roadkills from 22 counties throughout the state.

In the subsequent five-year period, the numbers increased to 218 reports from 30 counties.

During 1995-2000, reports increased dramatically, with 383 reports coming from 41 counties.

And, in just the two years of 2001 and 2002, the commission received another 210 reports to add to its database. These reports not only indicate the state's bobcat population has increased in size, but also that populations have expanded geographically.

The commission has collected roadkills in some unlikely places.

A 1995 bobcat roadkill was reported in Chester County, on Route 202 near historic Valley Forge National Park. Lancaster County saw its first roadkill reported in 1999.

"Because the availability of suitable habitat is a limiting factor in southeastern Pennsylvania, we don't expect bobcat populations in these areas to sustain themselves at very high densities," Lovallo said.

"However, we should see more of these dispersal events as bobcat population density continues to increase in other areas of Pennsylvania."

He said the commission has collected 13 roadkills from Dauphin County since 1987 and the frequency of roadkills in the midstate has been increasing during the past five years.

"As bobcat populations expand, use of more fragmented and humanistic landscapes has increased," Lovallo said. "Other states, like Illinois, Ohio and Maryland, have also noticed increases in bobcat populations in suburban areas during the past decade."

He speculated that "these changes are most likely the result of increased dispersal events [movements of yearlings outside of their birth range] due to high population density" among the cats.

The expanding midstate bobcat population probably won't mean an expansion of the legal hunting and trapping areas to include parts of our region any time soon, according to Lovallo.

Hunting and trapping of bobcats is restricted to Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Columbia, Elk, Forest, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Lycoming, McKean, Monroe, Pike, Potter, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Wayne and Wyoming counties.

"We are fully aware that bobcat density is high in many areas of the state where we do not currently allow harvest," Lovallo said. "The PGC has adopted a highly conservative approach in allowing harvest opportunities in order to allow populations to continue to increase and expand geographically.

"We are currently assessing the feasibility of expanding harvest opportunities in several management units. The first expanded opportunity will likely occur in the southwestern counties.

"Although populations are increasing in Dauphin County, we would like to see continued expansion in these areas before we allow harvest.

"Some areas of Schuylkill County seem promising," Lovallo added, "but we still need more data from these areas to make significant changes in harvest regulations."

MARCUS SCHNECK: (610) 562-1884 or mhschneck@aol.com

32-caliber handgun
Wouldn't that just make the bear mad? I agree with him otherwise though.

That's what I thought. I also agree that anyone who tries to handfeed a bear is an idiot. Before we had kids, we went camping in bear country a lot. The precautions really aren't that difficult and just require a bit of information and common sense. I predict this will, however, have a lot of people in an uproar. My mother is scared to death of bears; she's seen too many videos from Yellowstone from years ago when idiots fed the bears along the roadway. Somehow the idea of a self-cleansing gene pool just doesn't amuse her.

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