Bears on the move early in WNC

ASHEVILLE - Lara Mahan can’t wait to see black bears in her front yard.

Maybe differing in opinion from others in Asheville, the Chunns Cove resident welcomes reports that bears in Western North Carolina are awake early and on the move.

“We see them pretty regularly, but not yet this year. A customer at our Biltmore Village store (the Compleat Naturalist) said he saw a bear cross Fairview Road a couple of weeks ago,” Mahan said.

“We are super excited. We love to see the bears. We don’t go toward them. If we want them to go away, we clap really loud and say 'Go away bear!' and they run off. They’re really afraid of us.”

Wildlife biologists are cautioning residents to be vigilant about keeping bears from coming onto their property. Black bears are active sooner than expected.

“Bears usually come out the first week of April, but we started seeing them the second week of March, partly because of the warm weather we had,” said Mike Carraway, wildlife biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. “Bear cubs are already moving around, getting into trash and bird feeders. We’ve started getting calls.”

Preliminary results from the ongoing Urban/Suburban Bear Study in Asheville found the area's bear population is growing, and individual bears are getting fatter and having more cubs thanks to the plenitude of food, said Carraway, who’s based in Asheville.

The population growth has outpaced bear mortality by accidents or hunting and is prompting the state wildlife agency to make changes to bear hunting rules to increase the harvest. In WNC, public hearings on temporary rule changes will be April 5 and 6.

Comments sought on bear hunting rules

Total numbers from the 2015-16 bear hunting season are not completed, but Carraway said early estimates are that the harvest will be higher than the 2014-15 season, when 634 bears were taken by hunters in WNC.

That was nearly half  of the 1,027 harvested the previous season.

This year, he is expecting the number of bears taken during western hunting season to be more than 1,000, closer to the annual average.

“Last year, the decline in bear hunt harvest from the previous year was due to the bumper crop of acorns,” Carraway said. “When it’s a good crop, bears are not moving around. If they get acorns, they stay in one spot and eat. Moving around makes them more vulnerable to hunters.”

Along with the 6,000-8,000 bears estimated to live in the mountains, including roughly 1,600-2,000 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a bear sanctuary, the coastal bear population has grown enormously. The statewide estimate is 18,000-20,000 bears, Carraway said.

Public hearings on bear hunting rules will focus on a proposal to extend to the entire open season the time bears can be taken with the aid of unprocessed food as bait.  Natural bait includes any material derived from a plant including nuts, fruits and corn.

Current rules allow using bait from the first open Monday of bear season through the following Saturday in counties in which bear hunting is legal, including Western North Carolina counties west of Surry, Wilkes, Caldwell, Burke and Cleveland counties.

This year's WNC bear season is Oct. 17-Nov. 19 and Dec. 12-Jan. 1.

The Wildlife Resources Commission wants to stabilize the black bear population, said David Cobb, wildlife management division chief with the commission, which oversees hunting, fishing and trapping rules.

The agency tried out the new bait rules the first week of bear season.

“It neither negatively impacted the bear population nor helped us achieve our goal of maintaining the bear population,” Cobb said. “The bear population is outpacing the number taken by hunters.”

Living with bears

Unless you’re hunting, though, you shouldn’t be trying to lure bears to your backyard.

If left alone, most bears wandering into residential areas will quickly retreat to their natural habitat. Humans should not approach or follow bears, or put themselves between a bear and its possible escape route.

“A bear passing through a neighborhood can cause a lot of excitement,” said Ann May, program coordinator for the Wildlife Commission’s Centennial Campus Center for Wildlife Education. “But people should give bears plenty of room to allow them to move out of the area freely. Crowding around a bear can lead to a dangerous situation.”

The commission advises that people not feed bears, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Bears accustomed to feeding on pet food, table scraps, garbage and birdseed can lose their fear of humans, which could result in property damage.

The Wildlife Resources Commission rarely traps and relocates bears. Relocation can be dangerous to personnel and bears, and relocated bears often return to where they were originally captured.

“If you see a bear, just leave it alone, give it some distance,” Carraway said. “If they already got into the trash or bird feeder, they’re going to be defensive about food they’ve got in their paws. Just leave it alone, let it go and clean up and secure your trash when it leaves.”

Carraway said in general the wildlife agency will not make a site visit after bear sightings visit unless there is an injury reported.

“Usually we can calm down a situation by talking to people on the phone and giving them advice. Almost always, bears (in backyards) are related to a food source, and removing a food source will solve problem,” he said.

Bears dig Asheville

Preliminary results from the first North Carolina Urban/Suburban Bear Study, a joint project of N.C. State University and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, show that human-bear interactions will only be growing.

The study began two years ago when radio collars were attached to black bears in and around Asheville in hopes of learning more about their behavior, movement and mortality. Results show bears are becoming comfortable living among humans, and they are even making their winter dens in the city.

Seventy-four bears during the past two summers have been fitted with GPS radio collars within Asheville, including females, males, sub-adults and yearlings, said Nick Gould, a graduate student at N.C. State and field coordinator for the study.

Twenty bears are currently collared, Gould said. Some collars were programmed to come off as bears grew. Others were worn by bears that died, were hit by cars or killed during hunting season.

This spring and summer will be the last season for trapping and collaring bears in the four corners of Asheville, Gould said. Winter den work – when biologists enter bear dens, tranquilize bears, take measurements and count cubs – and data collection will continue through 2018.

This past winter, den studies found 10 out of 15 females in dens, 67 percent, produced 17 cubs. The previous winter showed four litters of four cubs, Gould said. Twenty bears used 24 den sites, in some cases, surprisingly close to city neighborhoods.

The biggest male bear in the mountains was reported in the first summer of trapping. A male bear in the Swannanoa area weighed 572 pounds.

Carraway said average male bears weight 250-350 pounds, and females average 150-250 pounds. Easy access to food is one reason bears are getting larger.

Gould said bear size and abundance also has to do with natural food sources.

The first year of the study  was one of the best on record for mast, which is berries and acorns, Gould said.

“This likely contributed to some of the weights we observed as well as the large proportion of females that reproduced,” Gould said. “The reason long-term studies are so valuable is because you can account for annual variation in natural food production, weather, hunter effort, etc. This prevents researches from basing their study results on a single year.”

One projection is that there probably won’t be as many cubs this year, Carraway said. All the bears with cubs last year have yearlings with them now.

“Bears have cubs every other year. Later in the summer the mother bears will run the yearlings off so they can breed again,” Carraway said. “Long about summer we’ll see a lot of yearlings. They’re like teenagers, running around, getting into trouble as they’re finding their own food.”

Mahan said bear study biologists trapped a young, 140-pound female and her three cubs in their driveway last year.

The bear got into their bird feeder, which Mahan said she and her husband no longer put out during bear season.

“A lot of fear comes from lack of knowledge or misinformation. Black bears evolved as prey species, which is completely different from brown bears, which we don’t have here,” Mahan said. “Their lives are ruled by fear and food. That’s why they’re good climbers, to avoid danger.

“We’re so excited that we live in a place that has bears. We’re 1 1/2 miles from downtown and here we have this huge mammal walking through our neighborhood. It’s super exciting.”

IF YOU GO

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission will hold the following public hearings on temporary bear hunting rule proposals, each starting at 7 p.m.

District 9: April 5, Haywood Community College Auditorium, 185 Freelander Drive, Clyde.

District 8: April 6, Western Piedmont Community College, Leviton Auditorium, Moore Hall, 1001 Burkemont Ave., Morganton.

Avoid problem interactions with bears:

• Use garbage cans or trash containers with a secure latching system. 
• Keep trash indoors as late as possible on pickup days — don’t put trash curbside the night before.
• Take down birdfeeders, even those advertised as “bear-proof.”
• If you feed pets outside, make sure all food is consumed and empty bowls are promptly removed.
• Clean food and grease from barbecue grills after each use.
• Don’t dispose of grease or cooking oil nearby.
• Be careful with food and food odors in vehicles.

For more information, visit the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission website at www.ncwildlife.org/bear or call 919-707-0050.