Pennsylvania Game News - October 2023 - 7

throughout the fall. "
But be prepared to be flexible. If a place
that had lots of food last year doesn't this
year, bears will quickly move on.
Certain clues reveal whether bears are
using an area or not.
" Signs indicating bear activity include
scat, tracks and scratch marks on trees, "
Carrollo said. " Look on smooth bark trees
like maple or some types of birches, as
they show more prominently. "
Then there are large, flipped-over
rocks, ones big enough that only a bear or
human could turn them over. They indicate
bears looking for insects underneath.
Marking posts on trees or even telephone
poles are another sign of regular bear
activity. Carrollo suggests looking at the
height where a standing bear would reach
to rub its back and scratch or bite the post
or tree behind them.
Finally, keep an eye out for large nestlike
structures in trees. Those are places
where bears push small branches and
leaves down as they forage on mast.
Find those things and you'll find bears,
sooner or later. It may take a while for
things to come together with finding a
bear, in bear season, in a spot that offers a
shot opportunity. But persistence can pay
off, as Jack Lewis proved.
Just rest assured the bears will be there,
now and into the future.
" Pennsylvania was an example of how
to manage bears in a way that allows for
an annual harvest while still recovering a
population in the 1980s and '90s, " Carrollo
said. " This tradition continues but
has changed in some ways because bears
have recovered to much of their historic
range here and have stable populations.
" Now, our goal is to maintain the
population at levels that are acceptable
according to social carrying capacities and
still allow for an annual harvest. "
OCTOBER 2023
RIGHT SIZE
Some people love having dandelions
in their yard. Some go to great lengths
to root them out. Some don't care much
about them either way.
So it is with bears.
That's why there's really no " right "
bear population for Pennsylvania, said
Game Commission bear biologist Emily
Carrollo. The amount of available habitat
- the biological carrying capacity of the
landscape - might suggest one thing. But
human tolerance for living with bears
- the social carrying capacity - might
suggest another. And both can change
from time to time.
That all impacts the setting of bear
seasons.
This fall, for example, for the first time
in several years, there is no extended
bear hunting in Wildlife Management
Units (WMUs) 1B, 2C, 4A, 4B and 4D
during the firearms deer season. That's
in part because " nuisance complaints, "
or run-ins with bears that might include
agricultural and property damage, are
down to acceptable levels.
" The goal of extended seasons is to
add harvest pressure on a population to
stabilize or decrease it, and that goal was
achieved in those WMUs, " Carrollo said.
" So those seasons are no longer needed. "
That's not to say they won't ever
be again, or that others in different
WMUs won't come and go. Carrollo said
population and harvest trends, as well
as nuisance complaints, play a role in
deciding whether a particular season is
sustainable or even necessary.
Keeping a handle on populations is
tricky, though; there's no way to count
every bear in the state, Carrollo said. But
a new population model - a " statistical
population reconstruction project, " in
the science world - in development is
already providing information " helping
us better understand how effective our
current method is at estimating population
and harvest metrics. "
" The preliminary results are just the
beginning, and it's looking like a great
way to get population and harvest estimates
in the future, " Carrollo said.
7
Pennsylvania Game News - October 2023

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