Southfork Bears Watching
Research project promising for black
bears in Tennessee
by Lisa Byerley Gary
When European settlers
began populating East Tennessee in the mid-1700s, black bears were a common
sight. By the late 1800s, human encroachment had driven most of the black
bear population from the area now known as Big South Fork.
In the late 20th century human influence may once again
have an impact on the black bear population there-but this time a more positive
one as the species is reintroduced to the area where it once thrived.
The idea originated with game hunters who frequent the
region. The Tennessee Bear and Boar Hunters Association brought it to the
attention of state officials and the National Park Service which, in turn,
handed it to the UT Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries. Beginning
in the late 1980s, UT did preliminary evaluation and has served as the hub
for funding and in-kind support from a variety of sources. The resulting
research may please big game hunters. Reintroducing the black bear to Big
South Fork may very well be a viable idea. Even the surrounding communities
seem supportive.
"This area was heavily logged," explained Rick
Eastridge, UT graduate research assistant. "That, coupled with unregulated
hunting back then, spelled the beginning of the end of the black bear at
Big South Fork."
But black bears hold a fascination to visitors of the Appalachian
mountains, says Dr. Joe Clark, principal investigator for the project and
director of the Southern Appalachian Field Laboratory for the Biological
Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey. One survey showed that the number
one reason people enjoy visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
is the opportunity for bear sightings.
The research is being conducted through the cooperative
efforts of UT, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the National Park
Service, the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, the Kentucky Department of Fish and
Wildlife Resources, and the U.S. Geological Survey. The lab is located at
UT through a cooperative agreement with the UT Agricultural Experiment Station.
The focus of the work is to evaluate methods for repatriation of the black
bear to Big South Fork; that is, to determine the best way to re-establish
a once-thriving population.
"At end of this project, we will not tell these agencies
whether or not they should repatriate Big South Fork with bears," Clark
said. "The managers of those areas, as well as the public, will decide
whether or not it is a good thing. Our job is to give them some tools and
some protocols. If they decide that reintroduction is desirable, we can
tell them if it is biologically feasible, how to go about it, and what to
expect."
A Place to Call Home
The first leg of the journey was completed by Dr. Mike
Pelton, an internationally recognized expert on black bears and a professor
in the UT Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries. A habitat analysis
directed by Pelton indicated the area was suitable for black bears.
"We're not just talking about Big South Fork,"
Clark explained, "but the whole ecosystem comprised of the Daniel Boone
National Forest in Kentucky, the Royal Blue Wildlife Management Area, and
also quite a bit of private timber land. The whole area is probably well
over a quarter of a million acres."
Pelton's report confirmed the habitat was suitable. Then
an environmental assessment had to be done and distributed for public review.
That went well, too, Clark explained.
"All participating agencies wanted the public to be
very much involved in the decision-making process and to be aware of what
was going to happen up there. It went over very well. We expected at least
some opposition. But the agencies involved let citizens know what we were
planning to do and also a little bit about black bear biology. I think that
really helped matters a great deal."
Making the Move
Then came the real test-moving some bears into the area
to see what would happen. It isn't a cut-and-dried process, Clark explained.
Bears are very independent creatures, and just because a wildlife biologist
thinks Big South Fork would make a good home for them doesn't mean the bears
will necessarily agree. It isn't unusual, he said, for a bear to travel
up to 300 miles to get back home-and to run into human dangers like automobiles
in the process.
"That has been the big hang-up in trying to get satellite
populations of bears established. So we wanted to look at a couple of new
techniques."
Other large carnivores have been moved successfully with
what is termed a "soft" release, Clark said. Once in the new area,
they are confined for a couple of weeks to acclimate them to the new environment;
the animals are cared for during that time with an absolute minimum of human
contact.
During the summer of 1996, Clark's group caught six female
bears without cubs in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, moved them
to Big South Fork, and put them in pens. Chris Graves, an undergraduate
student in Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, "babysat" the bears.
He camped out in the forest while the bears spent two weeks at a time in
16-foot diameter circular pens with 1/4" steel bars.
After release, the researchers monitored the bears' wanderings
via telemetry-collars with small radio transmitters that could be tracked
from aircraft.
Three of the bears stayed in the area, though they wandered
far from their release points. The other three met varied fates. One was
captured near Lafollette, Tennessee, and re-released nearby. She was later
killed on I-75 near London, Kentucky.
A second bear was seen crossing I-75 near Crab Orchard,
Tennessee, and was eventually recaptured on the outskirts of Chattanooga.
"We took her back to the Smokies," Clark said. "We thought,
she's come this far; obviously she doesn't want to stay at Big South Fork."
A third animal dispersed in the same direction, but was
killed by a car near Vonore, Tennessee. "Ironically," Clark said,
"if she'd gotten across Highway 411, she would have been in the Cherokee
National Forest and likely would've made it back to the Smokies."
That kind of tragedy is exactly what wildlife biologists
want to avoid, Clark said, and the reason they experimented with an alternate
technique-wintertime placement of pregnant bears or those with newborn cubs.
The hope is, he said, that maternal instinct would take precedence over
the homing instinct.
 Bears in Winter
Here's a quick primer on bear biology: Bears give birth
every two years, usually in January. The cubs nurse while the mother sleeps
during hibernation. They emerge with her in springtime and re-den with her
the following fall. The next spring, as yearlings, the cubs stay with their
mother a little while longer, then separate as the mother comes into estrus.
Then the whole cycle starts all over again.
Clark and Eastridge moved three denning bears during December
1995. These pregnant females were placed in new dens in Big South Fork.
All three moved immediately, but remained in Big South Fork where they found
new den sites within a week or two, he said.
"We checked on these animals and we know that they
gave birth," Clark said. "They are still there, with the exception
of one. The UT College of Veterinary medicine did a necropsy and determined
that she died of a uterine infection which had nothing to do with her translocation."
Clark had planned to move three more bears in January 1996,
before they had a chance to give birth, but a government budgetary shutdown
kept his crew from completing that work. By the time they could begin again,
the cubs had been born.
That delay proved to be fortuitous. When the next three
bears were moved along with their cubs, they stayed in the dens where they
were initially placed. Probably, Clark said, because they had no choice.
The cubs were simply too immature to travel.
"They're staying where we put them. They're not out
wandering around during a time of year when they really should be hibernating.
They're not burning up energy that they really shouldn't be burning up.
The cubs all did well. The bears are even a little bit easier to capture
because they have cubs with them. They are very hesitant to abandon those
cubs."
"It's very clear to us that the winter release protocol
has been much more successful than the summer release," Clark said.
After the success of the winter phase of the project, Clark
was given permission to move more females with cubs last winter. Two females
with cubs were moved early in 1997.
Settling In
As for the bears that were moved in 1996, they are making
out quite well in their new habitat.
"A couple of bears have almost doubled in size,"
Clark explained. "For one thing, we had a really good acorn crop last
year. The bears in the Smokies were bigger, too. But the bears at Big South
Fork seem to be disproportionately larger than a typical female the same
age in the Smokies. The Big South Fork bears basically have the run of the
place and can choose whatever habitats they want. Normally adult males seem
to exclude females from some of the more productive habitats and that may
be why these females seem to be doing so well at Big South Fork."
And there are no male black bears in Big South Fork. Or
are there?
"It's been speculated for years that there are already
a few bears in Big South Fork. If the females that have yearlings this year
turn up with cubs next spring, we'll know there is a culprit somewhere."
There have been sightings reported in the past, Clark explained,
but he believes those were likely young males dispersing through the area.
"Not what you would call a viable population. And there wouldn't be
one for many, many years without our intervention."
Moving male bears is much more difficult than moving the
females, he added. Males are more transient by nature and would have nothing
to tie them to the area. Timing would be crucial. If males were moved during
the summer, just as the female bears were coming into estrus, that might
provide an incentive to stay put for a while. They would only need to stay
a few weeks for breeding to occur.
The cubs that are new to the area would likely begin to
reproduce in about three years, he said. "As long as we have a sufficient
number of animals so that we don't have problems with inbreeding, they could
serve as part of the male component of the population. Bears are a polygamous
species and, theoretically, one male could sire all the females we have
there currently."
The bear population in Big South Fork currently consists
of about seven adult females and between 10 and 13 yearlings, Eastridge
said.
He has continued to monitor these animals from the air
via telemetry through the summer and fall. This winter he'll do den work
to check for the birth of new cubs, to attach radio collars, and to gather
data on sizes, weights, and den choices. Eastridge will examine all the
data gathered in the project for his master's thesis.
"I'd like to keep some radio collars on these animals
to be able to monitor their fate over time," Clark said, "and
maybe put collars on the yearlings as well to see if they're dispersing
out of the area. We are tattooing the cubs on a small space on the inside
of a hind leg. That could be very valuable information one day. If one of
these bears shows up as a fatality in North Carolina or somewhere else,
we'll know where it came from."
Public Sentiment
At this point, it's obvious that the habitat in the Big
South Fork area is very well suited for black bears, Clark said, but the
future of the bear population there will not be his decision.
"Our work is mostly done. Now we'll be talking with
the agencies involved, and they'll decide how they want to proceed. If they
want to pursue re-establishment of the population, they'll need public input."
A big question mark remains with citizens in the Big South
Fork area. Do they want the bears?
The citizens who initiated the project still follow its
progress, Clark said. "They are very interested, and we've gained even
more support since we began the actual work. A lot of people in the area-especially
as they've gotten to know us and the work we're doing-are very supportive
and are excited about having bears in Big South Fork. We get reports of
visitors sighting bears there now.
"Another big finding of this study is that we've had
no problems, no nuisance behavior," he added. "There's been none
of that. The bears have just faded into the landscape."
That was a pleasant surprise to some people, Eastridge
said. While doing fieldwork in the Oneida area, he encountered a woman who
had been a vocal opponent of the project at the outset. She had been concerned
about the safety of her children.
"She saw me one day when I was doing telemetry and
came over. I showed her the map and one of the bears ended up in a wooded
area near her home, almost in her backyard. She thought it was just the
greatest thing in the world. She invited me down to her house to drink a
Coke and eat a sandwich."
Another day a man came up to the truck to find out what
Eastridge was doing. "I've been against that thing from the very beginning,"
he announced. Then he started asking questions about the equipment and maps.
"What do these dots mean?"
"That's where the bears are right now," Eastridge
explained. "So we talked another ten minutes and the guy got ready
to leave. He said, 'Well, all right. You take care of our bears now.' "
Incidents like this are not uncommon in his work, Clark
explained, and "that's why it is so important to maintain a good relationship
with the local people and respect their wishes. After all, it's their home."
Bears in Big South Fork
Putting black bears back in Big South Fork is an idea many
people support, but Clark says there are tangible, long-term benefits that
far exceed the simple pleasure of seeing a bear in the woods.
"We're trying to restore ecosystems to better approximate
what they once were. And that results in greater biodiversity and in greater
ecosystem health, which in the long run will mean better quality of life
for us as humans, both aesthetically and biologically.
"This isn't soybean and corn production, but what
we do is really compatible with that. We know we can't grow crops on every
acre in East Tennessee, and we'd like for our children and grandchildren
to have something of a natural environment left when they grow up. Our work
is all part of that.
"Our aim is to restore this really magnificent creature
to some of its former haunts. There are bears roaming around at Big South
Fork now where there haven't been bears for a hundred years. When you think
about it, that is pretty  amazing." |