MDC details bear management plan

VAN BUREN, Mo. —Missouri’s black bear population continues to grow, while at the same time expanding its range into new areas, prompting the state’s Department of Conservation to begin developing an updated, comprehensive management plan.

“Our current estimate is between 540 and 840 bears,” MDC Resource Scientist Laura Conlee told about 40 people in attendance at an open house last week in Van Buren.

That’s significantly higher than the 300 to 350 bears the department estimated in 2012,

MDC staff take measurements from a female bear trapped in Shannon County before placing a GPS collar on her. DAR FILE/Paul Davis

“We have very high female survival rates and good cub production, and our population is growing at about 9 percent annually,” Conlee noted.

Most bear sightings, she noted, occur south of Interstate 44, with most in what she described as a “core range” in the state’s southernmost counties.

However, that core area has been expanding north, northeast and east, with more frequent sightings in west-central counties, Southeast Missouri’s hill country and especially just south of the St. Louis area.

Black bears, a species native to Missouri, were thought to be extirpated from the state in the mid-1900s because of unregulated hunting and drastic habitat changes in the Ozarks.

However, in the late 1950s, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission launched a black bear reintroduction program in that state’s northwestern counties, and many of them wandered into Missouri.

Over the years, more and more bear sightings were reported, and in 1993, the Department of Conservation developed its first management plan. Subsequent research and genetic testing showed not only had many of Arkansas’ bears moved northward, but a remnant Missouri population had never been eliminated after all, staying hidden from the public eye in the rugged Ozarks for decades.

In 2008, MDC officials updated its bear management plan, and in 2010, research began in earnest to determine how many bears the state was holding.

Bears were, and still are, trapped during the summer months and fitted with GPS tracking collars, which allow scientists to learn how they move on the landscape and determine exactly what types of habitat they prefer.

The most recent research project by MDC officials, Conlee said, is being done to determine population growth, and with that, biologists continue to visit the winter dens of females wearing collars to find out if they have any cubs. If so, they are tracked for a full year to determine survival rates.

While many are eager to see a larger presence of black bears in Missouri, there have been problems, and as the bear population has increased, Conlee said, so have the number reports of unwanted encounters near homes, campsites and the like.

Because of the increasing frequency of encounters, MDC officials are urging residents to not create situations which can attract bears.

For instance, bears have highly-sensitive noses and are attracted to a variety of food sources, including pet foods stored outside, grease traps in outside grills, bird seed, garbage and many others.

“We need to think of bears like big raccoons,” Conlee told the open house crowd. “They are opportunistic omnivores and will eat whatever is easy and most available. If a raccoon would be attracted to it, so would a bear.”

As such, she recommended residents not invite bears to their homes by keeping such things outside.

Residents also are encouraged to learn how to react to a bear encounter, including leaving plenty of space for the animal, backing away slowly, making loud noises and more.

The continual increase in the bear population, along with negative encounters, Conlee said, underscores the need to manage their numbers to prevent overpopulation and increased negative encounters.

“We’re seeing a shift in management,” she said, noting MDC is in the process of developing protocols for an eventual, limited hunting season for bears.

During earlier studies, it was determined hunting would be instituted to help control bear numbers when a minimum benchmark population of 500 was reached, and now that it has, initial discussions of a season framework have begun.

While Conlee didn’t speculate when that inaugural season ultimately would begin, the development process, she said, would take some time.

MDC’s draft black bear management plan, released this month, is available for viewing online and submitting comments at mdc.mo.gov/bears, and when finalized, will guide decisions for the next 10 years.

It focuses on four goals:

• Using science-based methods to manage a self-sustaining population, including research and monitoring, population management and habitat management;

• Using human dimensions to inform management decisions related to recreational opportunity, and public opinion, interest and understanding of bears;

• Minimize and address human-bear conflicts, and;

• Increasing awareness of Missouri’s bear population and management program through coordinated outreach.