By the 1960s, North Carolina's once-thriving black bear population was a fraction of it's Colonial levels........They were completely gone from the Coastal Piedmont due to unregulated hunting, habitat decimated from intensive logging in the early 20th century and the chestnut tree blight of the 1930s and '40s.............Today the Tar Heel State has at least 11,000 bruins roaming over 10 million acres versus the the 4000 bears in the early 70's that occupied just 2.5 million acres............Let's do the same thing with Pumas and Wolves in N.C. over the next 40 years---Get them back in the woods and fields where they can help the bears keep the forests alive and well and not denuded by an out-of-control Deer population

North Carolina Wildlife Commission

North Carolina Black Bears

Population & Occupied Range Expansion

Black bears thrived throughout all of North Carolina in

 pre-colonial times. Nevertheless, like mountain lions 

and wolves, black bears were persecuted by early

 settlers and populations suffered from detrimental

 habitat changes.

By the early 1900's, black bears were restricted to the 
most remote mountains and coastal swamps. Unlike
cougars and wolves that never recovered in North
 Carolina, black bear populations and range have
 expanded over the last 30 years.

The expansion in bear populations and range is due
 to changing human attitudes about bears, better laws
 and enforcement of laws, better management by wildlife
 agencies, the adaptable nature of bears and the ability
 of bears to peacefully coexist with people in most
 circumstances.

• 1971—About 4,000 bears occupied approximately
•  2.5 million acres
• 2008—About 11,000 bears lived on almost
•  10 million acres