Bear sightings give hope to researchers
By Rebecca Layne
Scattered sightings of female black bears and their cubs in the Missouri Ozarks are giving researchers hope that a successful breeding population of black bears exists in the state.
Within the last month, public sightings and photographs taken by trail cameras have identified five different female bears and their cubs in Shannon, Christian and Webster counties. Although a few females with cubs have been spotted in the state since the mid-1990s, the new photos provide more evidence that successful reproduction seems to be occurring.
Photos of these lumbering creatures have been hard to come by in Missouri, especially photos of sows and their cubs.
"a;This is good news,"a; said Dave Hamilton, a Columbia-based resource scientist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. "a;There have been sightings of females in the Ozarks traveling with cubs."a;
To protect the bears, Hamilton would not disclose the exact locations of the sightings.
Hamilton is excited that black bears are dispersed and living in some of the most suitable habitats in the state - large tracts of forest with little traffic and few people. The best black bear habitats in Missouri are found in Shannon, Reynolds and Iron counties.
Hamilton hopes that additional females will be discovered in other areas.
Black bears were thought to be extinct in Missouri by 1930 due to unregulated hunting. During the 1950s, around 250 black bears were released into the Ozarks of northern Arkansas. This number eventually grew to Arkansas's present-day population estimated at 3,000.
One question that remains unanswered is the makeup of black bears in Missouri.
MU senior Kaitlyn Faries, a biology and chemistry major, launched a university-funded, preliminary study in early summer with the help of Dave Hamilton and Lori Eggert, MU assistant professor of biological sciences, to determine whether black bears in Missouri have DNA similar to the Arkansas bears. This would mean black bears in Missouri are descendants of those originally released in Arkansas that wandered north.
Since female black bears rarely roam far from where they are born, it is possible that the female bears in Missouri have unique DNA. If that's the case, Hamilton said, it could mean black bears never became extinct in Missouri and have maintained a native, or "a;relic,"a; reproducing population in Missouri since the 1800s.
Faries set out to determine where the estimated 150 to 300 black bears in Missouri came from by implementing a hair sampling technique. Hamilton and Faries placed approximately 80 "a;hair snares"a; in Shannon, Christian, Webster and Reynolds counties. These snares are positioned in a circle around a tree, where three half-opened cans of Beach Cliff sardines hang. The snares are made of barbed wire and painlessly snag bits of the bear's hair as it reaches for the sardines.
DNA can be extracted from the root tip of the hair and tested in hopes of answering questions about the sex of the bears and their genetic similarities or differences with the Arkansas population.
So far, more than 200 hair samples have been collected. Hamilton believes that only 40 to 60 percent of these hair samples will actually yield DNA because some of the collected hairs lack the root tip needed for the DNA analysis.
When asked about the progress of the sampling, Eggert can barely contain her enthusiasm.
"a;It's a major success in actually getting hairs in the snares knowing that the population size is small and the density is very low,"a; Eggert said.
The results of this study will help researchers learn more about black bears in Missouri and provide information to help manage the population.
With the data from this preliminary study, a more complete study will be done in the future to determine a more accurate count of black bears in Missouri.
Hamilton believes that when the numbers reach around 1,000 and bear-related nuisances occur with more frequency, a restricted hunting season can resume.
"a;We need to protect them until we have a population with viable numbers,"a; Hamilton said. "a;People seem to be tolerant of black bears. They seem excited at the prospect of black bears in Missouri."a;
Timeline of Black Bears in Missouri
Source: Missouri Department of Conservation
- 1700 to 1830: Black bears found in abundance in Missouri. Bears killed by settlers for food, as well as for their fat and skin.
- 1830s to 1840s: Over-hunting drastically decreases black bear population. Black bears become rare in Missouri.
- 1894: Black bears reported to be almost extinct in Missouri.
- 1920: Black bears still occasionally seen in "a;Bootheel"a; area of southeastern Missouri until flood of 1927.
- 1931: One of the last records of a verified wild black bear in Missouri killed in "a;Bootheel."a;
- 1950s: Despite claims of extinction, two black bears killed in Ozarks. Other rare sightings reported in Ozarks. It is not known whether these are native bears or escaped or released bears from western states.
- 1958: A 250-pound adult black bear is shot in Iron County.
- 1959 to 1967: 254 black bears from Minnesota and Canada are released in Arkansas by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission as part of a restoration program. Estimates increase to 600-700 bears within 6 years in Arkansas.
- 1950 to 1972: 54 occurrences of black bears in 27 counties in Missouri.
- 1959 to 1970: 12 black bears in Missouri killed. That number represents 25 percent of all sightings.
- 1988: Doniphan District of the Mark Twain National Forest records 15 sightings of black bears in Ripley County.
- 1990: 55 separate reports of sightings in 26 counties.
- 1991 to 1992: Results from bait-station survey suggest small populations of black bears in southwest Missouri and in the Current River watershed.
- 1991: 95 sightings in 34 counties.
- 1992: 152 sightings in 34 counties.
- 2007: Black bear population in the state estimated at 150 to 300.
Article published Friday, September 7, 2007, in the Columbia Missourian
