A taxidermist’s mount of a Louisiana black bear was one of the exhibits in April at the Bayou Teche Black Bear Festival in Franklin. The festival celebrated its 10th year of educating Teche Area residents about coexisting with the animal on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s threatened list. Studies show the bear’s population is growing in Louisiana.
Researchers with the University of Tennessee said studies during the past seven years show growth in the Louisiana black bear population, but a full viability analysis won’t be complete for several months.
Dr. Joseph Clark, ecologist with the University of Tennessee, said students began researching the subpopulations of black bears along the coast, upper Atchafalaya and around the Tensas River Basin in 2006, trying to establish population parameters like growth and survival rates.
The species has been on the threatened species list since 1992.
He said students, like Jesse Troxler whose efforts focused on St. Mary Parish, have been collecting DNA at baited barbed wire corrals. The bears have to either crawl under or over the wires, Clark said, and students collect fur samples left on the wires for DNA extraction.
Once they have the DNA of a particular bear, they can track when a bear visits other sites. Over time, the method can be used to estimate population sizes.
Clark broke down the method like this: “If you’ve got a bowl of marbles, say there’s 100, but you don’t know that. You want to estimate how many are in the bowl.
“You grab a double handful — say 50 — and paint them red and mix them back into the bowl. You take another double handful — 50 again — and find that 25 are marked. That means half the population must be marked. The population must be comprised of 100 individuals.”
According to the Associated Press, the statewide population was at about 300 when the bears were first classified as threatened. Clark’s students’ estimates have put the total now at 500.
“We do know that in a couple study areas — really all the study areas — populations have increased since we’ve been studying them,” Clark said.
“It’s at a low rate, but it’s never the less increased. That’s a good sign.”
Clark said the goal of their work is to determine how the Louisiana black bear populations are doing and whether they can continue into the future.
An analysis to that end, he said, could be complete by this winter.
“We will present it to the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service, and they’ll decide what steps they want to take from there,” he said.
The national service is the deciding agency on whether the bears remain classified as threatened.
Meanwhile, local state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Michael Drewry said his office is still getting calls about bears south of U.S. 90 on a daily basis. But, he said, he’s also getting nuisance calls from Lydia, Glenco and Patterson.
“All the same areas are still being affected,” he said.