There are more Louisiana black bear sightings and, naturally, nuisance reports now than in the past for a good reason — more of the bears are living in the Sportsman’s Paradise.
Twenty-one years ago there were an estimated 300 Louisiana black bears in the state. That was 1992, the year the Louisiana black bear was listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
According to an ongoing study by a research team from the University of Tennessee, the population has grown to 500. Louisiana black bears, one of 16 subspecies, reside in and around the Atchafalaya Basin, in coastal areas of Iberia and St. Mary parishes, and in the Tensas River Basin.
The study will help determine if the subspecies — familiar to Teche Area residents who see them in and around Lydia and Glenco, among other nearby locales — can survive without federal protection. Bears from one population must be able to move and interact with another, movement that can be tracked by bears wearing radio collars.
Delisting the Louisiana black bear has been a high priority of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for several years. Getting rid of that threatened classification would qualify as a success story of transforming a perceived nuisance animal to a trophy game animal, with a limited and closely monitored hunting season, according to the DW&F.
Despite the growth, which was discussed in a story last week in The Daily Iberian, it appears there is a long way to go before Louisiana black bears are threatened no longer. Their movement doesn’t meet the requirement of going freely from one region of the state to another.
At least two groups must be able to survive without protection. Also, protected, forested “corridors” must be created to allow travel.
For example, The Associated Press reported, there is little movement between the Tensas and upper Atchafalaya populations, as well as between the upper and lower Atchafalaya populations, according to Joe Clark, the UT team’s adviser. Distance is the obstacle for bears getting to and from the Tensas group because it is about 130 miles from the Atchafalaya group and about 80 miles from the Richard K. Yancey Wildlife Management Area (formerly the Three Rivers/Red River WMA). Highways impede movement of bears between the lower and upper Atchafalaya Basin, he said.
However, the native bruins are moving freely between the upper Atchafalaya and Richard K. Yancey WMA, he said.
Clark said his team’s study will go a long way in determining the future status of Louisiana black bears.
“We will present it to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and they’ll decide what steps they want to take from there,” he said in the newspaper’s story.
Building the Louisiana black bear population to a sustainable level, one that can be managed through hunting seasons, as with other game, would be a success story indeed.