Black bears--Alabama's rarest wild creature
HUNTSVILLE.The recent arrest of a teenager for killing a black bear in the Mobile Delta country near Creole is a reminder to all Alabama outdoorsmen that the bruins are a treasured rarity here, and one that deserves the protections provided by the ADCNR. A special task force, the Alabama Black Bear Alliance (ABBA), has been formed to assure the survival of the species through public education and habitat protection.
Wildlife biologist Chris Jaworowski says there are only about 50 bears in Alabama, nearly all of them in the southwest corner where the bottom country of the Mobile River provides the necessary habitat. Bears also travel into the northeastern part of the state from the Appalachian Mountains of east Tennessee and western North Carolina, and are sighted on occasion particularly in Skyline WMA northeast of Huntsville, and in Black Warrior WMA to the southwest.
The resident bears in the southwest are of the subspecies Ursus americanus floridanus according to Jawarowski, the Florida black bear, which is found only in Florida, south Georgia and south Alabama. The bears that wander into the northern counties are American black bears--appearance and behavior is much the same, but there are slight genetic differences. Biologists report that the Florida-strain bears reach about 350 pounds in adult males, with body lengths to six feet. Females max out at about 250 pounds. Occasionally bears feeding on agricultural crops or garbage grow much larger--a bear over 600 pounds was killed on a Florida roadway about 10 years ago.
Bears are sometimes seen as dangerous predators, but according to the ABBA black bears are primarily shy vegetarians living on acorns, berries and wild greens, and confrontations between humans and bears are extremely rare. In most cases, a bear encountering a human will turn and run--except in cases where the bears have been fed.
"A bear's natural fear of humans is its best protection," says Jaworowski. "When they begin to associate food with people, they lose that fear."--like all habituation to humans.....a fed bear, coyote, wolf, cougar........................ends up dead--blogger Rick For that reason, bear experts caution that bears should never be fed, and that accidental feeding be avoided, as well; pet food left outside, unprotected garbage or unfenced gardens can lure bears close to human habitation.
I once belonged to a hunt club near Immokalee, Florida, on the north edge of Big Cypress Swamp--prime black bear country. We got along OK with the bears until somebody accidentally left some bacon drippings in the trash can inside the cook shed. We came back the following weekend to find the plywood door ripped off its hinges and debris from inside the shed scattered over several hundred yards. It looked as if the bear had actually consumed part of the tin cans stored inside, and pretty much torn up everything it couldn't eat.
Florida has a pretty good bear history, in any case; they went from a low of around 1200 in the early 1980's to a current population around 3000, which is just about all the bears a highly-developed state like Florida can stand; the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission now fields hundreds of problem-bear calls each year, many from terrified housewives in suburban developments around Ocala National Forest.Alabama, on the other hand, has a whole lot of big woods and a modest human population outside the urban areas, and probably could support healthy bear numbers with a little help from their friends.
For more on the Alabama black bear, including an easy spot to report sightings, visit http://www.alabamablackbearalliance.org/ or call the Alabama Wildlife Federation
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