By Bonita Wilborn
The idea of seeing a black bear rambling through the woods in northeast Alabama was once a page out of a fantasy novel, but no more. According to biologist connected with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR), black bear sightings in northeast Alabama are becoming more common.
According to Thomas Harms, wildlife biologist who works with the ADCNR’s large carnivore efforts dealing with bears and cougars, in 2014 the number of reported black bear sightings in Alabama was approximately 37, but that number doubled in 2015 to 75 reported sightings and doubled again in 2016 to as many as 150 reported black bear sightings in Alabama. Those numbers only represent the people who bothered to report the sightings.
“In Mobile and Washington County, and even in northeast Alabama, people are seeing bears enough to where they don’t report them anymore because it has become so common,” Harms said.
Harms explained that there are three known bear populations in the state, areas that are known to have breeding females. The oldest and most established is in the upper part of the Mobile Tensaw Delta, in north Mobile and Washington counties. New populations are taking hold in northeast Alabama and southeast Alabama, north of the Florida border.
The ADCNR has no records of a bear ever attacking a human in Alabama.
By means of secured collars and satellite, and snares set up across the state to catch bear fur that would allow DNA testing, researchers from Auburn University spent six years studying the Alabama black bear population’s movements in order to learn more about their habits and their diversity.
According to Auburn University’s Dr. Todd Steury, interactions between humans and black bears in Alabama increased last year and will likely continue to do so in the near future, at least in the northeast corner of the state. The ADCNR’s Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division’s State Wildlife Grants Program funded this study.
According to the study, the black bear population in the southwest corner of the state is relatively stagnant, while the northeast population, with roots in North Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, is poised for significant expansion.
Two methods were used to gather black bear DNA information; eco-dogs and hair snares.
With the eco-dogs method, dogs are trained to find bear scat. The dogs were taken to areas where black bear population were well known to exist. However, the dogs are not cost-effective if you’re looking in areas where you’re not sure about the presence of bears. For that, used hair snares were used. A hair snare is basically a barbed-wire fence surrounding bait. When a bear crosses the barbed wire to get to the bait the barbs pull out a little hair. Then, DNA from the hairs can be collected and tested.
In Northeast Alabama, hair snares were placed in most townships between Interstate 59 and Interstate 20, as well as throughout Little River National Preserve. Erecting of the hair snares 100–150 being placed in the region was completed with the National Park Service.
The DNA collected from those snares indicates that the black bear population in Northeast Alabama has more than doubled, going from about 12 bears to 30.
“We know those bears came from North Georgia,” Steury said. “We originally thought they might be from Central Georgia around Macon, but the DNA showed they came right down the mountain from Georgia.”
Of the Northeast Alabama population, Steury said: “The bears are breeding. We have seen numerous examples of sows with two or three cubs on our game cameras. We feel like the population there is going to grow, and there are still bears coming in from Georgia.”
Steury said the habitat in Jackson County and Talladega National Forest means it’s almost certain there will be more bears there in time.
The southwest population has a less optimistic outlook, with disappearing habitat, a lack of good den sites and a lack of genetic diversity factors.
Steury said a mailer was sent out to judge the public’s perception of bears.
“What we found is that people like bears,” he said. “They want to have bears in Alabama. Generally, they were not supportive of lethal management controls except in extreme situations, where there was clear danger to people.”
According to Steury, it’s rare for large predators to do anything but flee when they come in contact with humans.
“They can’t risk being injured,” he said. “If they’re injured, they can’t hunt. They can’t feed themselves and they’re going to die. They have no idea how hard or easy we would be to kill. They have no idea how dangerous we are, which is what basically keeps us safe.”
Steury said that last year’s sightings in Heflin and Oxford were of 2-year-old males that had been kicked out of the mom’s territory and were roaming to find new home territories.
He said:
They can cover thousands of miles. That’s why we see bears where they’re not supposed to be. They are juvenile males that are exploring for a place to settle down. The thing is, they never stay around. When I got the call from Heflin about what they should do, I told them to just leave it alone. In a day or two, it’ll be gone. If they get into somebody’s food or people start feeding them, that’s when they become problems.
Researchers have also put tracking collars on numerous bears in Alabama to determine home ranges and seasonal movement.