GREENBRIER COUNTY W.Va. (WVDN) – After receiving several reports of bears being found in local neighborhoods, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), spoke about whether cohabitation between humans and bears, is possible. The verdict: it very much is. Colin Carpenter, the Black Bear Project Lead and wildlife biologist at the DNR, spoke at length and he assured the community that every human holds the power in their hands to curb bears coming into our neighborhoods.
Among the topics discussed were the challenges of managing bears in residential areas, emphasizing the importance of education and proper waste management to prevent conflicts. Carpenter highlighted the need to address the root causes of conflicts, such as food availability, while expressing concern about recent human-bear interactions and the importance of proper waste handling. The general consensus is the need for a multi-faceted approach to manage bear conflicts in residential areas.
As Carpenter explains “We get around 600 to 2200 complaints a year in the state regarding bears, and probably 85 to 90% of those complaints revolve around garbage and bears getting into people’s garbage. So the vast majority of those complaints we deal with through education, trying to encourage people to do the right thing with their food attractants. Things like garbage, pet food, bird feeders, other animal feeders, whether those are deer feeders or whatever, to try to eliminate these issues. If you eliminate the food source, which is what is drawing the bear, the bear goes away. Unfortunately, I’ve been doing this 23 years now and we still have as many calls now as we did 23 years ago. So it all depends on natural food abundance.
“There’s certain times of the year when we have a lot of calls, which is like right now. In any given year, our peak for nuisance problems is the month of June, which is the biggest month of the year. And that’s for a number of reasons. Primarily because of the lack of natural foods. So the bears have been out of the den for a couple of months now. And they’ve been subsisting on green vegetation, which is common, that’s what they eat this time of year. Green vegetation, insects, colonial insects like ants, yellow jackets, wasps, hornets, things like that; are all things that bears eat. But if they can get an easy meal in the form of some garbage that has much higher calories at much lower effort, they’re going to take advantage of it. So what we’ve always tried to do is get people to be proactive and actually secure their trash ahead of time knowing that bears are in the area. We do a news release every year and try to encourage folks to do that.”
It really can be as simple as not putting your trash out the night before or securing your trash in locked, metal containers perhaps.
Carpenter continued, “I tell people, ‘You know of all the things that you deal with in your life that aren’t cause and effect, this one is.’ The bears are there because of the food source that you have. And a lot of people don’t even realize that they’ve created this food source. A lot of times folks are convinced they don’t have any food out. [For instance,] if you have a rugged Rubbermaid trash can that you keep your food in, that’s great. That may keep out some of the smaller things like mice, rats and raccoons but a bear is much more powerful than all those animals and he can easily access that food. [And will.] Assuredly, you like your bird feeder but so does the bear. You have to make a choice and it’s not always easy but through education and awareness, we can live together. It’s cause and effect.” To know what the bears’ habits and life are like, we must understand the bear. Be educated.
A common question is “What happens to a bear that is trapped on your property?” Here’s an explanation from DNR; “Right now, we’re getting into bear breeding season. June through July is when the bears are mating. Females that had cubs in January of 2023 will be [weaning and evicting] those 18 month olds right now. If we’re dealing with a bear in May or June, and those cubs are already over a year old, they’re self-sufficient. They’re going to be kicked out by her within weeks. So that would be the only case where we would separate her from her young. We don’t split up family groups. If we catch a sow that has cubs or when we catch a lactating female, most of the time you don’t catch the whole family group. We just tag her and release her on site. It’s typically the males that are the ones causing the problems. We know that male bears typically disperse at either two or three years of age so we’re relocating the animals that hopefully haven’t established a home range yet. [A large male of 140 pounds or more has an established home range. If we take him over 70 miles away, he will find his way back with ease. Those are the unfortunate times that we have to put a bear down.]”
In short, keep food and food waste inside. When the bear is dependent on the food you unwittingly leave him, and he is an opportunistic, flexible, omnivore; you hold his life in your hands. Our state animal depends on you more than you know. The DNR and several other entities in every state, have put together an incredible website that can help you, help bears. Anything and everything you need to know is at Bearwise.org.
