The mission of the DNR’s black bear management program is to maintain a healthy black bear population, but also one that provides a balance of recreational opportunities for residents and at the same time minimizes conflicts with the growing human population within the state. To fulfill this mission, the Michigan DNR has established 6 strategic bear management goals:

Population – The first four management goals relate to the endemic black bear population.

• Maintain a viable bear population within habitats suitable for the species where socially acceptable. This goal attempts to balance bear population size with human population.
• Maintain bear abundance at levels compatible with land use, recreational opportunities, and the public’s acceptance capacity for bear. Keep enough for a viable population, but not too many so that numerous nuisance issues are created.
• Manage black bear habitat to provide for the long-term viability of the species. This involves habitat management and conservation of important food, cover, water, and space.
• Use hunting as the primary tool to help achieve population goals. This is the only economically viable way to regulate black bear numbers within an area.

Recreation – Relates to regulated hunting for Michigan black bear, but in addition to hunting the DNR seeks to provide bear-related recreational opportunities which recognize the aesthetic value of bear.

Education – The Michigan DNR wishes to promote education about bear, bear-related recreational activities, and how to minimize negative human-bear interactions.

According to experts, black bear were eradicated from Texas by the 1950s. However, bears would occassionally show up from time to time as they traveled into the Lone Star State—primarily from Mexico. Because there was no game law prohibiting them from being killed, the State of Texas formally made bear hunting illegal in 1983. Shortly thereafter, bears that moved north and into Texas were protected, begin to reproduce, and have been expanding their range north and eastward since.

Black bear have had a stronghold in the mountainous areas of the Trans-Pecos, but the animals have been moving into the Edwards Plateau more recently. They are showing up on game cameras placed out by hunters to track white-tailed deer. In fact, just last year one had to be chemically immobilized and moved out of the city of Del Rio, and another big bear was road-killed near Alpine. Then there was the shooting of a black bear in Menard County earlier this year:

“Ray Hernandez was checking for oil at a pump jack this summer on a vast stretch of ranchland in Menard County when his cell phone rang. It was a well worker at a pipe yard on the property, insisting that he’d seen a bear.

The June 23 sighting escalated swiftly into a bear hunt that ended with the crack of a rifle, a felled beast and a criminal charge against Hernandez, who decapitated the state-protected creature with a hacksaw and ferried home its head and paws.

The black bear that wandered onto the Central Texas cattle ranch that day is the first ever confirmed in that part of the state, according to Capt. Alan Teague, a game warden with Texas Parks and Wildlife. For Teague and others at the agency, it’s further proof that the stamped-out species is reclaiming lost territory.”

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With the number of black bears in Val Verde County, Texas, on the rise, expect more interactions between bears and people, one state biologist says. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Wildlife Biologist Sylvestre Sorola earlier this week helped capture and relocate a young male black bear that wandered into a residential neighborhood in south Del Rio.

Sorola said encounters like the one earlier this week are possible now because black bears are re-colonizing traditional ranges in south and west Texas, areas from which black bears were extirpated in the mid-20th century.

The biologist said that sightings in Val Verde County began to rise in the 1980s and said those bears probably came to the area from thriving black bear populations in the Sierras del Carmen and the Sierras del Burro, the mountains in northern Coahuila that contain the distinctive “Sleeping Lady” formation west of Del Rio. Sorola said the bears from northern Mexico first established breeding populations in Big Bend National Park in far west Texas and have also returned to the Trans-Pecos, including Val Verde County.

Sorola said a small breeding population of black bears has gained a foothold in remote areas of the Pecos River in Val Verde County and said the young male black bear who wandered into Del Rio Monday and Tuesday could have been a bear wandering south from that population.

Sorola also stressed that while encounters between human beings and bears are likely to continue, even increase, the stress of those encounters can be reduced by the following of a few simple rules.

“Bears are not generally aggressive towards people, with the exception being a sow with cubs,” Sorola said.

He said it is important to remember that black bears are considered a threatened species in Texas and as such, cannot simply be shot on sight.

If a bear becomes a nuisance by raiding garbage cans or a problem by killing pets or livestock and behaving in other threatening ways, it can be removed, as was the bear in south Del Rio.

A bear may be killed, but only as a last resort, Sorola said.

Sorola said bears are omnivores, which means they will eat just about anything they can find, but that much of their diet consists of vegetative matter, including mesquite beans and prickly pear “tunas,” as well as insects and small rodents like ground squirrels.

Persons encountering a bear in town – perhaps going through trash cans or raiding a pet’s food bowl – should go back into their homes and call the police department, Sorola said. The law enforcement officers will contact the biologist and game wardens, Sorola said.

A wild black bear was captured alive in a south Del Rio, Texas, neighborhood Tuesday. The Del Rio police, city animal control officers and state wildlife officials converged on the 300 block of Plaza Avenue in the city’s San Felipe neighborhood about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The black bear, which had been sighted in the area since Monday afternoon, climbed a pecan tree on a vacant lot adjacent to Don’s Funeral Chapels, 307 Plaza Ave. Police armed with shotguns and rifles cleared a two-block area around the pecan tree into which the bear had climbed, ordering persons living in the neighborhood to stay inside their homes.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Wildlife Biologist Sylvestre Sorola, an experienced outdoorsman and veteran hunter, shot the bear with a tranquilizer dart shortly after noon Tuesday. Instead of leaving the tree, the darted bear scrambled about 10 feet higher,
forcing wildlife officials and Del Rio firefighters to use the fire department’s ladder truck to haul the unconscious bruin to the ground.

In the dim light before dawn, it’s hard to tell what that dark shape is under the feeder 100 yards from your hunting blind. It’s probably a feral hog stealing corn you bought for deer to supplement native forage. But make a positive identification before you pull the trigger; that hog-like shape could be a black bear.

Black bears were almost gone in Texas by the end of World War II because of unregulated hunting and habitat loss. However, a small resident and reproducing black bear population now exists in Texas and it is slowly expanding its range.

To manage the return of bears in the forests of eastern Texas, a coalition of conservation partners called the East Texas Black Bear Task Force has created the East Texas Black Bear Conservation and Management Plan. The task force is working to pave the way for black bear restoration in its historic range in eastern Texas through education, research and habitat management.

Bears have been making a slow and natural return to Texas since 1984, when a black bear was observed in Big Bend National Park for the first time in nearly 50 years. A large portion of today’s bear population resides in the vast, arid desert and mountain country of the Trans Pecos Region in western Texas.

A few wild and free-roaming individual bears have been observed in south Texas, the western edge of the hill country, the northwestern panhandle and the forests of deep east Texas in recent years. They are considered to be primarily younger males moving hundreds of miles alone from their birth places of western Texas, northern Mexico or the bordering states of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana where black bears are more common.

Black bears are protected in Texas and are on the state threatened species list. Only in far eastern Texas do black bears get additional protection through listing as a threatened subspecies under the federal Endangered Species Act. This listing is associated with the black bear population in adjacent Louisiana (Ursus americanus luteolus). Bear hunting of any kind has been prohibited statewide in Texas since 1983.

The forests of eastern Texas are similar to other occupied black bear habitats in adjacent states. East Texas contains approximately 12 million acres of forested private and public land, including four national forests and the Big Thicket National Preserve. This region is considered to be one of the next places in Texas for the continued slow, natural return of black bears.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has documented several reliable bear sightings in recent years in eastern Texas. Some of the most recent sightings have been verified by photos of bears taken by motion-sensitive cameras installed at deer feeders. Studies are in progress with researchers at Stephen F. Austin State University to better determine the distribution and occurrence of black bears in eastern Texas. This research involves the collection of hair samples for DNA analysis and the assessment of suitable forested habitats most likely to support bears.

The East Texas Black Bear Conservation and Management Plan adopted by TPWD in 2005 uses a partnership approach to facilitate the recovery of black bears in eastern Texas through cooperative efforts. One misconception about this plan was an early suggestion that TPWD would stock bears. This has never occurred and department biologists say it will not happen in the future unless there is solid public and political support for it. And, stocking may be unnecessary as bears continue to move slowly and naturally into the forests of eastern Texas from adjoining states where there are growing, expanding or stable black bear populations.

Bears are still rare in Texas and very few Texans have ever seen one here. Black bears are also normally shy and not aggressive to humans. This combination of factors makes it unlikely that you or someone you know will encounter one.

Even so, never approach a bear. If you do happen to encounter a black bear at close range in the wilds of Texas, it is advisable to talk in a calm manner while backing away slowly. Do not make direct eye contact and do not run. If a bear approaches you, stand your ground and raise your arms, backpack or jacket to appear larger. If the bear continues to approach, yell at it to scare it off. If a bear is visiting your deer stand or campsite, scare it with rocks, a slingshot or an air horn.

Hunters need to know their target and not mistake a bear for a feral hog or javelina. It is a violation of law to kill a black bear in Texas.

Public opinion surveys of residents in several Texas counties show general support for the return of black bears, while also indicating a need for more easily available information about bears.

Anyone can receive the recently created brochure “Bear Safety in Mind” from TPWD by calling one of the following regional offices nearest you: West Texas/Alpine — (432) 837-2051, Central Texas/Kerrville — (830) 896-2500, East Texas/Tyler — (903) 566-1626, North Texas/Canyon — (806) 655-3782), or South Texas/Pleasanton — (830) 569-8700.

The brochure and other information about black bears are also available on the TPWD Web site.