Black Bear Safety

This paper in the Journal of Wildlife Management is timely. Black bears are awake, looking for food, and, not finding much in nature, are looking to garbage cans and bird feeders (or, as at my house yesterday, a compost bin), when they can get at them.

Canadian scientists, with help from a scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and a Brigham Young University researcher, investigated over a century of fatal black bear attacks on humans, and got a big surprise. The conventional wisdom about bear attacks — that they are mostly mothers defending their young — did not hold up to analysis.

The study found that male bears were involved in 92 percent of fatal black bear attacks. The people’s food or garbage likely played a role in the attack 38 percent of the time. Ninety-one percent of the time, the person who was killed was alone or with one other person.

The number of fatalities was a surprise as well, at least to me. The scientists studied 63 deaths. The rate of fatal attacks seems to be increasing, with 86 percent of the attacks occurring between 1960 and 2009. And while I had imagined the mid-Atlantic US to the southern Appalachians as offering a dangerous mix of big black bears and lots of people, it turns out that Canada is home to most black bear fatalities, with 44 of the 63 fatal attacks. (With another five in Alaska, leaving the contiguous U.S. states with just 14.)

Read more about the study in the Toronto Globe and Mail, complete with a nice map.

Read the abstract, or the whole article with subscription or for a fee, in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Photo credit: Waverley Traylor, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Black Bear Safety

This paper in the Journal of Wildlife Management is timely. Black bears are awake, looking for food, and, not finding much in nature, are looking to garbage cans and bird feeders (or, as at my house yesterday, a compost bin), when they can get at them.

Canadian scientists, with help from a scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and a Brigham Young University researcher, investigated over a century of fatal black bear attacks on humans, and got a big surprise. The conventional wisdom about bear attacks — that they are mostly mothers defending their young — did not hold up to analysis.

The study found that male bears were involved in 92 percent of fatal black bear attacks. The people’s food or garbage likely played a role in the attack 38 percent of the time. Ninety-one percent of the time, the person who was killed was alone or with one other person.

The number of fatalities was a surprise as well, at least to me. The scientists studied 63 deaths. The rate of fatal attacks seems to be increasing, with 86 percent of the attacks occurring between 1960 and 2009. And while I had imagined the mid-Atlantic US to the southern Appalachians as offering a dangerous mix of big black bears and lots of people, it turns out that Canada is home to most black bear fatalities, with 44 of the 63 fatal attacks. (With another five in Alaska, leaving the contiguous U.S. states with just 14.)

Read more about the study in the Toronto Globe and Mail, complete with a nice map.

Read the abstract, or the whole article with subscription or for a fee, in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Photo credit: Waverley Traylor, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Spring research round-up

<!–[if !mso]> st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } <![endif]–>

Black duck
The New York State Department of Envirnmental Conservation and the New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit (located at Cornell University) are conducting two black bear research projects in south-central New York this season. One study will estimate bear population density using a genetic (DNA) identification technique. The other will study bear movements and habitat selection in core bear ranges and fringe areas. Read more.
Also this spring, the NJ Department of Environmental Protection Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program is teaming up with Montclair State University and the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey for the state’s first broad-based scientific study of chytrid fungus. The study seeks to find out if chytrid fungus is having an impact on the state’s amphibian populations. More info from the State of New Jersey.
This winter the Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Department studied black ducks along the state’s coast. The department is concerned about the birds because their numbers have been declining. Read about the study in this article from the Cape Codder, via the WickedLocal Eastham blog. The study will continue for three more years.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife recently completed catfish research in the Wabash River. There had been no harvest limits on large catfish in the state, and the public had expressed concerns about fishing pressure. The state is looking into regulating the fishery. Some info on the regs from the Indiana General Assembly. A report on catfish in the Wabash River.
Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Dept.

Florida may delist black bears

In June, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will decide whether to remove the black bear from the state’s threatened species list, a move that would open the door to hunting them. There are some interesting statistics buried deep in the Orlando Sentinel article, including that 8 percent of the bears in the WekivaOcala corridor are hit and killed by cars each year, on average.

Read the whole article in the Orlando Sentinel here.

A press release from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission from last November about the delisting process is here.

Photo credit: Waverley Traylor, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service