Pennsylvania Game News - March 2022 - 31

BY BOB FRYE
BEARS AT BAY
Bears are just gonna bear.
Given the chance to eat something - almost
anything, anytime, anywhere - they take it.
And if that food source remains constant, all
the better. These highly intelligent animals
with good memories will visit it over and
over again.
" That's how they get through life, " said
Emily Carrollo, the Game Commission's
black bear biologist. " The bear will remember,
I have found food here, or I have not
found food here. That's why they visit the
same swamps every spring, to go eat skunk
cabbage, or why they go to the same hard
mast plots in their home range, because they
know that's where the beechnuts are, where
the acorns are. "
That can cause problems when a bear's
menu expands beyond wild resources, though.
In Pennsylvania, it's unlawful to intentionally
feed bears, but people sometimes provide
food without realizing it. And if a black bear
gobbles seed from a birdfeeder, devours pet
food on a screened-in porch or garbage in a
garage, you can bet it will be back.
The Game Commission gets calls about
such " nuisance " bears every year starting as
early as March. Complaints peak in June and
July, when bears are the most active, but continue
through November and denning season.
There was a time when dealing with those
animals meant catching them in culvert traps -
big metal tubes with spring-loaded trap doors
and baited with doughnuts or other treats - and
moving them far away.
That strategy is still employed from time
MARCH 2022
to time, especially with bears that have graduated
to more-daring and potentially dangerous
encounters with people.
But that's now often an approach of last
resort, Carrollo said.
For starters, there aren't many places left
to move bears, not when they're already filling
every available habitat gap on their own.
Then there's home range. An adult bear that
already has one established will likely return
to it, no matter how far it's moved. And finally,
especially in areas with lots of bears, moving
one doesn't prevent another from taking its
place if the food source - wild or otherwise
- remains.
Carrollo said the better, long-term answer
to minimizing bear-human conflicts is for
people to remove temptation. That applies
not only to individual properties, but to communities,
as bears that found food in, say, one
backyard shed aren't shy about prospecting all
the sheds in a neighborhood looking for more.
" If we can remove and manage any kind
of artificial food source that bear is going to
be interested in, then we will more than likely
never experience a black bear problem, " Carrollo
said.
That won't eliminate the need for culvert
traps and moving bears occasionally. But it's
what's best for everyone, including the bears
just trying to make a living.
" Humans, as in pretty much all situations
involving wildlife-human conflict, have the
vast majority of control and the ability to prevent
problems, " Carrollo said. " Bears are just
doing what they've got to do to live. "
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Pennsylvania Game News - March 2022

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