Vermont bear season

[Emily]

http://www.timesargus.com/article/20091 ... 002/NEWS01
Hunters put a hit on bears

By TOM MITCHELL Staff Writer - Published: December 6, 2009

Hunters bagged a lot more Vermont black bears this fall than in recent years, as the agile animals with big teeth often roamed beyond their home range in the hills and mountains to eat loads of apples, berries and other vegetation.

Through late November, at least 554 bears had been killed by hunters, up substantially from the 424 taken last year, said fish and wildlife officials.

A shortage of some of the nuts that bears seek apparently kept them on the move to lower-lying areas, exposing them to hunters, to find the calories they need to survive the winter in their dens, according to Forrest Hammond, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The "harvest" could reach 600, up more than 40 percent from the three-year running average of 374 through 2008, officials said.

"I would expect very few from now on, because most (bears) would be denned up at this point," Col. David LeCours, chief game warden in the fish and wildlife department, said last month.

The season ran through Nov. 18.

The number of bears hit by automobiles also increased, but less dramatically. As of Nov. 24, 72 bear-automobile collisions has been reported, up from 56 last year, officials said.

The state also destroyed slightly more nuisance bears this year than last: 12 versus 10, LeCours said.

Portions of the bears' food supply, such as apples, have been less available in recent weeks as the weather has gotten colder, but there has been enough food in lower-lying areas to keep at least some of the bears out, officials said.

The southern portion of the state has a lot of oak trees, producing lots of acorns this year, Hammond said.

It was a good year for growing corn as well, he said. "Where there is not as much food (in their home range), they will come to lower elevations, to areas closer to people," Hammond said.

The population has been healthy enough to withstand the increased kill rate, in part because bears still seem to have the habitat to keep them clear of humans for the most part, officials said.

Estimates of the bear population through 2009 held in the 4,500 to 6,000 range, with a rough numeric estimate of 5,600, Hammond said.

One of the bigger portions of the bear kill was in Orleans in the Northeast Kingdom, with at least 45 taken there earlier this fall, Hammond said. The increased kill rate is not a concern, he said.

The hunting season plays a useful role in keeping the number of bears in check and out of the way of people, Hammond suggested. "If there was no hunting season … people would have had bears on their porches and in their backyards," he said.



Nuisance bears

Indeed, the number of conflicts between bears and humans that led to the animal being killed has stayed low and fairly steady.

Many Vermonters have expressed interest in keeping the normally shy bears around and want to see their numbers maintained, fish and wildlife officials said.

The wildlife department's plan for managing the bear population has been to keep its numbers the same, Hammond said. That goal was developed in response to the sentiment of a clear majority Vermonters in the past few years, officials said.

While in general black bears in Vermont do stay clear of people and do not pose a nuisance, they will be attracted by honey in beehives, chickens in a chicken coop and corn in farmers' fields.

"They are willing to take risks and come closer to areas where they know there is going to be people" when less food is available in their home range, Hammond said.

Dairy farmers are apt to be among those who harbor ill feelings toward bears when they intrude on their land and damage crops.

To curtail crop damage on his 170-head dairy farm in Johnson, bordered by the Green Mountains, Paul McLure allowed a part-time employee to shoot a 150-pound bear that had been eating corn in his field.

"That bear that we dressed, he probably had a five-pound bucket" of corn in him, McLure said. "It didn't look (like) he'd been eating much else."

In one of his fields, up to 40 percent of the crop was damaged by bear, McLure said. "It was so many different areas, it was big fields."

There have been quite a few bears on his farm, as many as six, McLure said. He has seen three of them, after having seen only one black bear from the Green Mountains in the last 30 years.

They don't necessarily eat corn. They get into a field and roll around in it, McLure said. "A bear can roll down a lot of corn in one night." Other hunters were in the area around his land and apparently wounded a 350-pound bear, he said.

In late summer, McLure's wife, Rhoda, was stepping from a tractor to dump rocks in a field and a cub was standing five feet behind her, he said.

"To say they are a nuisance is an understatement. You don't like losing (corn)," McClure said.



Stop the handouts

Bears also become a nuisance when food is intentionally left for them, according to Nancy Bell, a pioneering conservationist from Shrewsbury who has been a key player in protecting bear habitat.

"It creates a nuisance bear once they get food from humans," she said, adding that the chance of their survival becomes diminished. "Abundant source of food has bears moving around more," Bell said.

Bell has gotten reports of people putting out food so they can see a bear. And it doesn't matter what the food is — bears will be attracted. "They have this beautiful bear come to eat bird seed," she said.

Public education has apparently played a part in curing some of the conflicts between bears and humans, said LeCours, the chief warden.

The number may be underreported because in some instances people no longer call the state when a bear is on their property.

For example, in areas where bears may be around, people have learned practices like securing their trash and cleaning up after barbecues, which cuts down on complaints, said LeCours.

Or they now know enough to take down their birdfeeders in early spring until the end of November, he said.

"We don't want the bears associating people with food," LeCours said. And under Vermont law it is illegal to shoot a bear that has been attracted by food.

Fish and wildlife officials have kept a tally of the number of reports of nuisance bears, which totaled 142 last year. Up until the end of November this year, the number was 138, LeCours said. "It has really been constant in recent years," he added.

The number had leveled off or been in a bit of a decline in some years, after having risen about 10 years ago, officials said.

Tom.Mitchell@rutlandherald.com

[Jason Waterhouse]

Thanks for sharing. This was interesting to read.

[wackysam16]

They were looking at extending the bear season through deer season because of the population cool article though

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=11423153#