Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 24, 1994 TAG: 9401250005
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``Bears and humans are on a collision course,'' said Tom Evans, president of the Virginia Wildlife Federation, the state's largest outdoor organization.
Nuisance bear complaints are rising, he said. Conflicts between hunters and preservationists, between bear habitat and development are growing.
During a seminar in Williamsburg recently, the federation assembled wildlife researchers, hunters and preservationists in the same room to talk about bears.
``Our goal right now really is just to educate,'' Evans said. ``We saw a lot of signs the past couple of years that education on the bear was not very good.''
Only a few years ago, some researchers were saying that habitat destruction, high-tech hunting and poaching didn't leave the black bear much of a future in the Southeast. Record bear kills often were viewed with alarm as cutting into a declining population.
Now the concern has shifted to how to manage an expanding bear population.
``Bears appear to be in pretty good shape in the Southern Appalachians,'' said Michael Pelton, wildlife professor at the University of Tennessee. A speaker at the federation seminar, Pelton has studied the species since 1969 and is widely regarded as the foremost expert on the eastern black bear.
Hunters in Virginia reported a record bear kill during the 1993 season. The preliminary count has reached 813, and could nudge even higher before the tally is completed, said Dennis Martin, who is in charge of bear research for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
That isn't just an all-time high, it is a mark that goes soaring off the bar graph that Martin has used to trace kill figures across the decades. The old record was 663, established during the 1991 season.
Martin told seminar participants that he wasn't numb with surprise over the fact the '93 kill figure is 150 animals higher than ever recorded in Virginia, and nearly twice the 1992 kill of 483.
``I think if you'd told me back in the '70s that we would harvest in excess of 800 bear, I would have been surprised,'' he said.
In the '70s the kill averaged around 230, then began to take off in the mid-'80s, setting a record eight of the past 10 years.
The questions often asked as the figures climbed: Were bear hunters getting too good or were bear populations swelling?
When the kill count passed 800 the other day, Martin said, he got on the phone to check what was happening in other states.
About the same, as it turned out. West Virginia reported a record kill of 767. Georgia also posted a record; Tennessee had its
second-best season; Pennsylvania had one of its highest kills ever.
But researchers and managers need more than kill figures, Martin said. That's why the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has shaken some money from its tight budget for an extensive bear research project scheduled to be launched this spring.
``We want to get information on what the population really is out there,'' Martin said. ``We really don't have a good feel for that.''
Much of the research will be directed at the hunted population. Considerable data already has been collected on the nonhunted population in the 200-square mile Shenandoah National Park, where Michael Vaughn, a research biologist working out of Virginia Tech, has conducted studies.
In the spring, bear will be trapped and fitted with radio transmitters so their movements can be followed, Martin said. The study will take a look at home ranges, reproduction, cub mortality and other data that researchers believe to be important.
Hunters provided teeth from 98 percent of the bears killed during the '93 season, Martin said. That was a major improvement over the 15 percent to 20 percent of previous years, he said. The rings in a tooth are like rings in a tree and can be used to study the age structure of the bear population.
Other information will be gleaned from the more than 4,000 questionnaires handed out to hunters, Martin said.
\ chart - The Bear Facts color
by CNB