Bear Boom

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A tranquillized female black bear is shown inside her den at the base of a hollowed-out Douglas fir in southwest Oregon. She was part of a 2007 study on reproductive success of black bears in Oregon.

Black bears are multiplying and on the move across North America, snooping around cities where they've been a rarity, becoming roadkill and leading states to start or expand hunting seasons.

When bears come into contact with humans, they usually create just a nuisance by raiding garbage, bird feeders, orchards, crops and beehives — or by simply scaring the daylights out of residents taking out the trash or heading to the tool shed.

But as bears enter more urban areas, the number of highway accidents also has increased, creating a new danger for drivers usually accustomed to slowing down just for deer.

Bear numbers across the Northeast are at or near record levels, said John McDonald Jr., a wildlife research specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service based in Massachusetts.

A bear may wander 100 miles or more looking for a new home, he said.

The bear population in the United States rose from about 156,000 in 1989 to about 227,000 in 2001, according to a report published by McDonald in 2007.

Oregon is home to about 25,000 to 30,000 black bears, North America's most common bear species, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The black bear population in Washington state is presently estimated at 25,000 animals.

New York state has about 6,000 to 7,500 black bears, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.

The state used to have three distinct populations of bears — in the Adirondack Mountains, in the Catskills, and in the southwestern corner of the state. Over the past decade, those populations have expanded toward one another and bears are wandering into areas where they've rarely been seen, including around Buffalo, a metropolitan area of more than a million people.

Two bears — a yearling and a 300-pound adult — were killed recently on highways around Buffalo.

Two bears were spotted in recent weeks wandering through suburban Philadelphia, forcing lockdowns at several elementary schools. One bear was bowled over by a car, but both bear and driver went on their way.

In New York, the number of bears killed by vehicles annually has increased from 14 to 61 over the past 20 years. In Pennsylvania, there are about 200 bear-vehicle collisions a year.

That compares to about 50,000 deer-vehicle collisions a year in New York and nearly 100,000 a year in Pennsylvania, McDonald said.

Lynn Rogers, founder of the nonprofit North American Bear Center in Ely, Minn., estimates there are about 900,000 black bears across North America. The number of bears in Minnesota has grown from less than 6,000 to more than 22,000 in the four decades he has been studying them, he said.

Likewise, Florida's black bear population has grown from 1,000 in 1994 to an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 today.

"Bears are more abundant now than they have been in hundreds of years," said McDonald, who completed doctoral research on bears. "They're filling in states like Ohio and Kentucky that historically didn't have bears for hundreds of years."

Ohio's bear population is estimated at about 60. Kentucky, with a bear population estimated between 130 and 350, will hold its first bear hunting season in a century this year, for two days in December.

Twenty-eight states have bear hunting seasons, and some, including New York, have expanded them in response to rising bear populations.

Rogers, who has spent 42 years closely observing bears in their habitat, attributes the rise in black bear population to conversion of farmland to forest and to the fact that the animals are no longer poisoned, trapped, or gut-shot as vermin.

"People are realizing they're not the dangerous animals we once thought," Rogers said.

Conflicts arise when people enter bear habitat, or vice versa.

"There are bears that take up residence in suburban areas and lose their fear of people," McDonald said. "Problems range from destroying birdfeeders to breaking into people's homes."

In the town of Hunter in the Catskill Mountains, a mother bear and her two yearlings were killed by police last month after they broke into four homes. The animals had learned to associate humans with food after being hand-fed last year.

To prevent problems with bears, wildlife agencies advise people not to feed them, to stop feeding birds in springtime, to scrub the grease off barbecue grills, to clean garbage cans with ammonia and to store trash in secure containers.

With people increasingly moving into forested areas, conflicts with bears could increase, Rogers said.

"The attitudes of these people will determine the future of the bears," Rogers said. "People are much better educated today, and the more educated they are, it seems the more appreciation they have for wildlife."

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