Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: For Pennsylvania hunters and conservationists, our roots run deep. The episodes we bring to you on the Pennsylvania Game Commission's podcast, Call of the Outdoors, will take a deep dive into exposing the incredible work being done by agency staff and partners, including statewide habitat projects, the science behind wildlife management, and what drives agency decisions. The Pennsylvania Game Commission's mission is twofold, to manage and protect wildlife and their habitats for not only current at future generations, and to promote hunting and trapping in the Keystone state.
Hello and welcome back to Call of the Outdoors. The Pennsylvania Game Commission's podcast got a really awesome episode today with our Bear, Black Bear program manager, Miss Emily Carollo.
Emily has been with the agency, I think, three or four years now, and she's in charge of our black bear program. She's going to give us a lot of information of what goes into bear hunting or bear season and the overall population of black bears here in Pennsylvania. We're excited about that. But, you know, as we sit here this time of year, we're in the middle of show season. You know, come catch us at the NRA Great American Outdoor show in Harrisburg going on right now. You know, obviously, it's the biggest show in the country. We have law enforcement folks there. We have biologists there, you know, our staff in marketing and information education. If you have questions, come talk to us. That's why we're there. We want to engage with every single person that loves wildlife as much as we do. You know, we're coming off the board meeting, the board of commissioner meeting that just happened, you know, just a week ago. Lots of things, seasons and bags, the proposed seasons and bag limits for the 2024 season. You know, it's available. That information is out there in the recorded version of the whole meeting can be found on YouTube. But thank you for joining along on call the outdoors. And we're going to get right into black bears. Good morning, Emily.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Well, thanks for coming. And we're going to jump right into it. And I'd like you to tell the folks that are watching why you're here today at the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: It is a bit of a long story, but I'll keep it very short. My favorite saying is long story short, so I'll try and actually stick to that. I grew up very close to Pennsylvania. I grew up in northern New Jersey.
I always had a love for wildlife. I always had a love for animals. I mean, I was a kid, like, constantly watching animal planet and Steve Irwin. And I'm sure there's many of us out there, especially my particular generation.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: But I knew I wanted to work with wildlife. I just didn't really know what capacity that was going to be. You know, I didn't grow up in a hunting family. I didn't grow up in a family that owned firearms. And we grew up in a very rural part of New Jersey, so we were able to see wildlife very often. But, like, I had no idea what a wildlife biologist was like. To me, a wildlife biologist was Jeff Corwin. So I didn't know that there were state program managers and biologists that worked, or even on a federal level as well, that kind of did all this work with wildlife. And so I actually went to the University of Virginia. And part of the reason I went there is because I did play soccer for their program, and I got a degree in environmental science and focused more towards, like, the ecology side of things, which is the whole picture right on the landscape. So after that, I decided to go to Penn State. Had a we are. Yeah, we are Penn State.
So I decided to go to Penn State. I had a fifth year eligibility to play, so I played one more season with their women's soccer program as well and got my master's in wildlife and fishery science. And while doing my master's is where this world of wildlife kind of opened up for me, I started to learn more about these different programs and positions that were available that I could really do what I love. And I've always loved things with sharp and pointy teeth and big and what most people would think are really scary. And I decided to kind of move towards that route of some sort of mesocarnivore, carnivore management as much as I could. And basically after my masters, I just bounced around a lot and did a lot of different wildlife jobs. I've worked in Louisiana. I've worked in South Africa.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a pretty awesome experience.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Can imagine.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: And I actually did work for the game commission prior. The first opportunity to trap bears I ever had was under Mark Turnett, our previous bear biologist. And so that was a summer after I graduated with my masters. I was trapping bears. And my position before this, I was actually working in New York, doing a lot of human bear conflict mitigation and management in the Hudson Valley region of New York. And then I came here when the black bear position opened up. So it was kind of all serendipitous how it all lined up and worked out.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: It's funny because, you know, obviously black bears in Pennsylvania, to our sportsmen and sportswomen, are like the holy grail I mean, like, there's, this is a mysterious animal out there. It really is. And most of the time, like Mark and, you know, prior to Mark was Gary Ault. And, you know, obviously they think, you know, those guys are big umbrella. And you're the toughest person in our agency, no doubt. I mean, you crawl down there. Absolutely crawl down there with bears. And, like, us guys, when we go out there, we're, like, scared. They're, like, gonna stand back and you just charge right in there. But we're lucky to have you here at the game commission, and there's lots of great things going on, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. So, you know, jumping right into it. You know, just, if you would a little bit just talk about the current population of our black bear population, where we're at today, you know, 2024. You know, obviously there's a lot of things going on, and we're gonna talk about that, too. But just where we stand is in our state level population.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: So right now, the population estimate that we have, have for this previous year, mind you, is around 18,000 bears. That is an increase from what we. From last year, but it's also an increase from the trend we were kind of seeing 2020 to 2022. You know, we saw consistent population declines for those three years. Kind of the biggest jump being from 2019 to 2020. When we went down from, I think it was around 19, 20,000 bears to about 16,000 bears. And then 2021 and 2022, we kind of hovered around 15,000 bears.
As a program manager, we have to look at the full picture. We can't just make a decision with one point. We want to see where the population is going, what things may be affecting the population, and look at things that we've introduced along the way that may be playing into how that population trend is going. Obviously, 2019 was one of the largest introductions of not only new seasons, but extending some current seasons. We had, like, with the statewide archery.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Opportunity and the early muzzleloader and extended rifle seat. Yeah, and it was done on purpose.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: It was done on purpose. Yeah. So there was a couple factors to that. It was a. To introduce more opportunity for black bear hunters. Our black bear hunters in Pennsylvania are truly one of a kind. I mean, I have never seen a culture in my life of how enthusiastic and passionate, you know, these black bear hunters are. I mean, I get contacted all the time of, you know, individuals who maybe either have concerns or they are, you know, interested in learning more about different hunting spots. I mean, it really is a unique culture. And I tell this to other black bear biologists all the time because they're always like, man, like, Pennsylvania really can hammer home, you know, a bear harvest. Like. Yeah, because it's a deeply rooted culture.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Right. And put it in perspective, when we have north of 200,000 licensed black bear hunters, so many states don't have that many total license holders for everything. And, I mean, that's how big and deep rooted, like you said, and the passion is out there. And that's another thing you have to juggle when you're looking at the populations. I mean, we have a big population of bear hunters.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think to put it kind of in perspective, you know, there are some states out there that a black bear tag is actually offered when you buy your hunting license. Like, it's included in your hunting license. We could never do that. I mean, we really, truly can offer too much opportunity to hunt black bears. And, you know, there is kind of a biology and behavior of black bears as well that we have to think about when managing them that might differ from different game species. You know, our denning period, our reproductive rates. You know, again, we have to look at the whole picture. And in addition to that, recognize maybe where we're lacking information that we need to more deeply understand and deeply research to make the most informative decision.
Which is kind of where we made our decision for reducing the muzzleloader season this year was based on. We knew introducing these new seasons in 2019 basically could potentially affect the bear population. Right. It was intentionally introduced to offer more opportunity for our bear hunters, but also to add another level of population management because the previous season structure, our adult females, our main season, when most of our animals were harvested, was that general firearm season. And at that point, a number of adult females, especially pregnant females, are denned. Not all of them, but most of them. And so our female harvest rates were fairly low for a number of years, and our overall harvest rate wasn't really hitting this 20% threshold, which is kind of considered the threshold of stabilizing a population. And what we did was introduce these opportunities to try and manage the population a little bit more in each WMU and throughout the corbear range, but also understanding that we, again, we can't offer too much opportunity. So is this opportunity too much? And if it is too much, to what level can we continue these opportunities? And so that's where these two projects came from that I kind of mentioned in the presentation at the commission meeting was our survival project on the sprouts. Lake Forest that specifically looked at survival of adult females, especially during our harvest seasons. And then in addition to that new modeling technique called statistical population reconstruction, basically.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: I'll never be able to spell that, I can promise you. And you know what?
[00:10:41] Speaker B: I try and make sure I say it, because biologists are the worst at using acronyms. I don't know if you've ever had that conversation with David Sandbrook. He has a list of acronyms.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Oh, no kidding.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Oh, my God. It's ridiculous.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: There's acronyms that go around our agency all the time. And it's like, what are you talking about? But I get it. I mean, totally get it.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: So if I say SPR, I'm saying statistical population reconstruction. If you can say that ten times.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: Fast, there's no way I could do that.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Good for you.
But essentially, actually, what statistical population reconstruction does is it takes information that agencies already often collect. So, for example, the age of harvested black bears. We already take a tooth from every single black bear.
We look at the some form of what's called auxiliary data for the model, which means we can use all of the tagging data of the hundreds of bears we capture every single year to currently monitor our population. In addition to that, we can use our collaring data of the many. We've had some males collared in there, but mostly females. Right? So our collar information, and then last but not least, one of the other most important components of this is a measurement of hunter effort. Now, we get that from our annual game take survey that we send out to literally thousands of hunters to understand how they used the different seasons that we offer. You know, for example, did you archery hunt during the bear season? Yes, I did. Okay, well, how many days would you say you went out and hunted black bear during the archery season? And what that model helps us do is estimate a number of population parameters, right? You know, abundance, harvest rates, etcetera. But in addition to that, it gives us an idea of harvest efficiency for each season. And when I say harvest efficiency, what I'm talking about is a measurement called catch per unit effort. And I'm going to try not to get like uber technical either, because I'm following you.
So basically, catch per unit effort is a measurement of how many animals are harvested per unit of effort. For hunters, it's a wonderful measurement because we can then reasonably compare seasons. You know, I can't necessarily straight compare the archery season to the general firearms season because they're different lengths of time, they're using totally different implements, and sometimes even the techniques used during those seasons are vastly different. For example, the general season, we see a lot of drives. We know drives are more successful at harvesting bears than just stand or still hunting. So.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: And archery equipment is close. And a rifle you have a little bit.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, more distance.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of what I'm going to let you go. I just caught me for a second. But a lot of folks don't understand that. Like, there's a lot that goes into this. I mean, a ton. And I know you said you ran the numbers twice and, you know, you don't do that in a day. I mean, and one other thing I just want to point out, I'm going to let you go back.
And I was one of these people, I'd get a survey in the mail. I used to hunt all over the place, all over the country, and I'd get a survey and I'd look at them like, I'm not answering that. And I'd throw it away. And shame on me, I'm mad at myself for doing that. It's important that our sports and sportswomen out there, when you get a survey, mail, email, phone call, take the time to do it because that's how we gather that information and that's how you make your decisions. So they're really crucial to wildlife. I just wanted to hit that nail on the head if I could.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, honestly, our bear program uses those surveys for, you know, a few things, especially when we're doing this kind of research. But for some programs, a game take survey is massively important to understand how hunters are using the seasons. And then in addition to that, you know, what kind of harvests success we're seeing in different WMU's. So, yeah, totally agree. Like, we send these surveys out because.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: We want to know it's not just an exercise. Like, we use that information daily, especially in your shop in wildlife management, whether it's bears, turkeys, whatever it is. I mean, that information is important. Obviously, you can't be all over the state every day of your life, you know, and, you know, our hats are off to every day of what you do because it's so important to the future. And that's something that we don't look at a lot, too. Humans, we have a hard time looking past next year, especially our hunters. They're like, you know, and talking about next year and, you know, kind of, let's recap this season, this bear season, and as long as you covered everything, I didn't mean to cut you off. I mean, if I did, I'll wrap up really quick.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Okay, make sure we cover because I'll be like, wait a minute. She's talking about this catch per unit effort. What the heck does that mean?
[00:15:31] Speaker A: Matt is mean because he cut her off. I'm sorry about that.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: So essentially what this catch per unit effort does is it gives us a measure of harvest efficiency. And the way we measured it was the number of hunter days spent that achieved a certain harvest rate. We were able to split that up into males and females. And essentially it took far fewer hunter days to have a higher harvest rate of both males and females in our muzzle odor season. But mind you, with the females in particular, that muzzle odor season was really good at harvesting females. Now, okay, we take that information. We now recognize, like, muzzle order is really efficient. What do we do with that? And being a manager, it's not only a matter of like, taking the science and applying it to the population, but also thinking about how any decision we make is going to affect participation in the hunt. Right. And most of the time, my thought process is keep it as simple as possible. I don't want to, like, the more we start to get into, okay, we're gonna have this season during this time in certain wmus. And then, you know, maybe we do. We move the season entirely and date timeframe and this and that. Like, we try not to make really vast sweeping changes because it gets confusing and we want hunters to participate. We already know that we get complaints occasionally about, like, man, this is hard to follow. And honestly, I have readdez hunting digests. I mean, even sometimes with our own.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: State, we do it all the time.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Here and with other states. And I'm like, wait, when is this season? When does. When can I use this? And that sucks, right? Like, nobody wants to be in a position where they don't understand and are concerned about potentially illegally harvesting an animal. And it's genuinely because they just didn't understand what we were saying.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: So lots of our folks out there really appreciate that statement right there, I promise you, because it is confusing and it's very tough. And sometimes we get, we forget we have to look at things from outside in and how other people view what's going on. And I applaud you for saying that. And taking a look at that. I mean, I think it's really important, right?
[00:17:39] Speaker B: And also recognizing that I feel that I'm a person. And there's times, like I said, I look at this stuff and I'm like, wait, what?
But what we decided with shortening the season was because really what that efficiency was telling us, you know, that high efficiency of the muzzle or harvest was that the number of days we offer definitely affects the number of bears we're going to be seeing harvested.
And that's not to say that just because we made this change, it's done. And we're not going to continue to monitor other opportunities and make sure they're sustainable. That is my goal. I want to keep these opportunities on the landscape. I want to maintain them for Hunters, but they have to be sustainable. And so that was the goal of shortening the muzzleloader season, was to essentially reduce that effort. Right. That level of effort, because there's only so many days now that muzzleloaders, hunters can participate.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: And that's the proposal for this year for 2024, is the shortening season. And a little bit how our, we just came out of the board meeting a little bit how it works. You propose the seasons and bags and I mean, your bureau. But the season for bear season, that proposal goes in January and then gets a final vote in April, correct? Yeah. So that proposal's on the, on the, on the table right now. And folks are welcome to go look at that, too. Everything that happened, all the proposals from your bureau, especially with black Bears. And it's not just your rolling the dice. There's a, there's a very, very scientific method of what that. Cause bears are like deer or turkeys or anything else. I mean, you control the population by the female harvest. I mean, and that's something like you just said, the muzzleloader female harvest was, was, we're really good at shooting bears, you know, in that muzzleloader season. And the female aspect, I mean, we took our state population from, wasn't it in the two thousands at one point?
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, from about 2013 to 2018, it was hovering anywhere between 18 and almost 21,000 bears, and we really weren't having much of an effect. And it's not so much that we go in and we're like, we see a number and we think we need to decrease. There's also a number of things that go into population management, too. Right. So that we have our biological carrying capacity, which is how many bears the landscape can actually host. And then there's also a social carrying capacity. Right. Which is for many species, white tailed deer, our furbearers, anything that essentially people have some level of conflict with, especially bears being a very intelligent species that can find trouble occasionally.
There's that social caring capacity aspect, too. So, you know, for example, that's why we have incredibly long seasons here in the southeast, because it's not good bear habitat. There's a lot of people, and it really wouldn't support a very connected bear population and would have really limited ability to manage conflict because they would just be encountering people left and right.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: I remember when one got in the middle of downtown Harrisburg three or four years ago. I mean, that's not good. I mean, and not that bears are dangerous. Like, that's what I wanted to talk. Might as well hit it right now. I mean, you know, growing up and you always. People that are scared to death of bears. But let's talk about that real quick while we're, you know, in the middle of this.
Just talk about that if you encounter a bear, and we're going to get to more of that at the end, too. But like, what, why people think that they're intimidating because they're big, but like, you know, you're not scared of a bear.
What should our folks do and assure them that that danger factor, I mean, you got to respect it, but it's not what people, you know, it's not.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Going to come eat you, right, exactly. I think most importantly, the main message that I try and tell people is you should always respect wildlife. If you respect wildlife, you're not going to have a problem.
You should always give bears plenty of space. Sometimes if you're in a situation where maybe you're hiking on a trail and you surprise a bear or you encounter one in close quarters, there are definitely methods you can take to try and help mitigate any kind of possible problems. But for black bears in particular, they are way more afraid of people than we are of them. And if we can remember that and try and keep level heads, if we encounter something that's a little more intimidating and also make reasonable decisions. Respect wildlife, give all wildlife their space. And if you do see a situation where there's something concerning, for example, we obviously get calls about orphan cubs. And so we tell people, listen, just leave them alone, don't bother them. And if it's still the same situation, depending on the time of year, again, a lot of things go into that. But, you know, a couple hours later, give us a call, we'll figure out what to do. We'll come out and we'll handle and assess what's going on. But the main thing is always give bear space, always respect, you know, the wildlife that's in your landscape. And if you encounter a bear, like, you genuinely don't have to be afraid I would say don't be afraid of. Be respectful.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Right. That's great. Great points. I mean, yeah, a squirrel will bite you if you do the wrong thing. I mean, it's. Bottom line. I mean, they're wild animals. They're trying their defense mechanism. I mean, but respect is what it's all about. And we're gonna talk about bear wise at the end. Cause it's a really good.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: I'll hold off on it instead of getting into it.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: So anything else that, you know, we're talking about the management plan, you have. You have a vision. The plan, I forget how many years. I'll just hit on that real quick. Or where we're looking at where we're going in that management plan for the next. I don't know. How long is that?
[00:23:10] Speaker B: It's five years.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Five years?
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So it runs from 2024 to 2029. Our last plan was ten years. Typically, a first plan is a little bit longer to kind of get the program in a direction or kind of running in a certain direction. And then with these five year plans, we try and update it a little bit more regularly. And for the most part, you'll often see goals remain relatively the same. That's why, you know, our first four goals really didn't change that much from the last plan, because they're very overarching themes. Right. These are the things we want to accomplish, but they're very big in nature. And then we kind of break those goals down into objectives and then even further down into strategies of actually, you know what underneath this goal means that we're trying to achieve it, which is our objective. And then the strategies are actually the steps we'll take to achieve that objective, to then help achieve the goal. I think a couple of crucial things came out of our stakeholder meeting and public comments, and one was a need for more public education to learn about bears for the exact reason of the question that you just asked me. Right. Like, a lot of people, they see something with sharp and pointy teeth and they just get scared, or maybe they don't know how to live and visit bear country without avoiding conflict. I mean, these are all things that we truly need to focus on educating our general public. And then in addition to that, we also had some new strategies in there to help monitor our population, which includes this statistical population reconstruction, but also understanding that the wildlife world and data analysis world changes regularly and it gets better every day. And our ability to monitor these populations in maybe less invasive ways continues to improve. So, you know, a lot of research goals of understanding survival of black bears here in Pennsylvania and updating our current population monitoring techniques, et cetera. And then, obviously, we'll talk about this a little bit later, but our bearwise program. So my goal is to help use bear wise to achieve kind of this human bear conflict goal that we have in the plan. But also it's part of our education program as well, to help people learn how to live with black bears.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and that's job security for our bureau because we get to help you along the way and getting those messages out. And it is important because, you know, we've done a good job, what we have. But like you said, technology is amazing today. Like, you know, we got, obviously, social media, and we have constant contact through our emails, you know, to our constituents. And we want to stay in touch with everybody. And, and, you know, when you, the other thing is, and we talk about this all the time when folks from your shop are on, when you're looking at this, we all want to have that anecdotal approach to the places that we know and we hunt. But when you're looking at things from a statewide, from border to border, east to west, north to south, you got to have that vision. Even somebody that's listening here, you got to understand when we do these plans, yeah. We get down into the wildlife management areas, localized, but we always are managing on the statewide level. And I think it's important to remember that. And that statewide level is a big lift. It really is, because there's so much diversity in our state. It's unbelievable.
So let's talk about something that is kind of cute and cuddly and everybody sees when we, when we post this on social media, it's our, it gets the most action, the most views, the most likes, the most comments, not surprise, in bear dens. And, you know, let's, let's kind of talk about Denning and, well, let's talk about reproductive first because, I mean, I think it's a thing, I didn't know this until I came here to work in 2019 about, you know, gestation period and how, how the reproduction of bears work. Cause it's not like whitetails or any, most animals. I mean, it's not an annual thing. So I'll let you just take it away before I really mess it up.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah, leave it to the specialist.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: But, yeah, I mean, black bear reproduction, obviously, to get to the denning period, as far as cub dens go, we need to talk about reproduction first. Right. And black bear reproduction, to me, is so cool. I mean, they. As a. For a large mammal, they go through bodily processes that are truly, in many ways, spectacular. And actually, when we talk a little bit about Denning, there are literally human doctors looking at black bears and how such a large animal can sleep for anywhere from three to six months.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: I thought they're. I thought you're gonna tell me they're gonna look out and let people sleep for three to six months and we'll get a good rest. I'm down.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Well, we sleep for three or six months, we're gonna look a heck of a lot different than what blackbirds look like when they leave. But we'll get into that later. But to start with the reproduction, you know, our breeding season is June and July here in Pennsylvania.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: That's the bear rut, right? I mean, yeah, I guess you could.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Call it the bear rut, but basically, you might see big boys battling it out. It can get pretty intense. I mean, exactly. They are trying to fight for breeding rights. And there is a lot of overlap between bare home ranges. We talk about an average home range of a female being six to 8 sq. Mi, an average home range of a male being about 20 sq. Mi. But that's the thing as a home range doesn't necessarily mean exactly a territory. And there's often a lot of overlap with these home ranges for particularly, obviously, females, but then even males. Right. And that's also why for these younger males, our yearling males, our two year old males that are a little bit smaller, they tend to be the ones that find the most trouble because they're just continuously wandering around the landscape trying to avoid these 300, 400, 600 pound males just looking to beat them up.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: In June and July, you say 20 sq. Mi. I mean, for a male, yeah, on average, which is, what, 13,000 acres. I mean, that's.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Don't ask me to do math.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: I'm doing it quick in my head. And I mean, that's a lot. I mean, yeah, that's something.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: That's a huge area.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: And now for males, the reason why it's a lot bigger is because they are encompassing multiple females in that. Right. And so there. A lot of that is for breeding purposes. You know, they try and meet with as many females as possible. So males are pretty promiscuous. They're trying to get their genes out there per, you know, a wildlife kind of way. Right. A biology.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: They don't have any dating apps, you know, no dating apps.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: So they can't find their next lovely barely.
So they get out there and they roam around. Right. And if a female is in what we call estrus. Right. So she's ready to breed. They will typically hang around with each other for a few days, and they will breed. But it doesn't mean necessarily that that female won't breed again, because it's not unusual for a female to breed with multiple males and have cubs in a litter that aren't necessarily all from the same father.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: No kidding?
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: That's crazy. Yeah, that is wild. So do they, like, choose their mate, like, you hear? Is that kind of a, you know, fallacy?
[00:30:04] Speaker B: I think that there is probably more of.
More of a selection in the idea that, like, females, once they're done, they're done. You know, they'll tell males, like, bug off, buddy. Like, I'm not doing.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: We're breaking up.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah, like, I'm done. You know, we're not doing this.
But for males, they'll continuously battle it out with each other to get rights to be able to breed with a female that's in estrus. And even during June and July, when we're trapping, it's not uncommon for us to have to be aware if we have a female that's in estrus that we trapped to just be cognizant of other bears that may be roaming around. There has been several instances where it'll just be, like, a big male, and he's just, like, waiting. And so in those circumstances, what we do is when we give her the reversal drug, we'll put her back in the trap, and we'll let her sit there for about an hour or so, and then we'll let her go to.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Make sure she had too much to drink.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Exactly. Like we're gonna. We're gonna make sure that she is. If she doesn't want to breed, she doesn't have to breed, you know, because it can. Also, if you think about bears, males are. Tend to be a lot bigger than females. They have sharp claws, they have teeth. And in females, it's not like they get injured, but they can get injured. Right. So we don't want that to happen.
And that's also, for sure, part of our responsibility when we handle this wildlife. But I'm getting off topic.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: I know, but it was a good story. It was a good place. Good story.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: So they breed in June and July. Then they go through a process called delayed implantation. And essentially what that means is the eggs are fertilized, and they get to what's called, like, a 16 cell stage blastocyst. And then the pregnancy pauses. And those fertilized eggs or these blastocysts, they float freely in the uterus until about, like, late October, early November. And then they actually implant on the uterine lining. And that is the start of the pregnancy. And so bears are only really pregnant for a handful of months, like three months or so. And then they have their cubs typically around middle of January, late January. So this is around that time frame that we start going out to what we suspect are going to be cub dens. And essentially, we aren't listening for any kind of sounds of cubs. Their cries, they're suckling, all that jazz. And so at that point, the cubs are born. They stay with mom until about they're a year and a half old, and then they venture off on their own. Mom says, get the heck out of here. I always joke, I'm like, it's like, you know, the 50 year olds still living in their parents basements, they're like, get out, kid. You know, go find your own home range. And females will typically settle in a home range right next to their mothers. And males will go a little bit further. And obviously, that's a biological thing to avoid any kind of inbreeding. So young males will go further.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: But, you know, just to come back to that, like, that takes them out of the breeding cycle for the next year.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: So it does.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: That's another difficult task when you're. When you're trying to put these numbers together, because literally every two years is when that. That female will reproduce.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: And that is an amazing story. I mean, a lot of folks don't realize that, you know, they're not like wild hogs or, you know, which every four months, I think wild hogs have a litter, and all of a sudden, population is out of control. But, you know, that's. That's another tedious thing with bears. Well, let's talk about Denning, because dens can be a multitude of things, which, you know, everybody thinks there's this big rock cave, and they crawl way back in. And that's the farthest thing from the truth about how a bear dens.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Yeah, so, I mean, they definitely, for the most part, in Pennsylvania, actually, den right on top of the ground. I'd say over 50% of our dens are just straight up right on top of the ground. Often, though, in a thicket of something, and it tends to be mountain laurel. So they'll literally make what looks like a bird's nest.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: I was just gonna say, oh, my granddad called it nesting. It's like, I found a bear nest and I had no idea what he was talking about.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: You know?
[00:34:09] Speaker A: And that's a common term.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, like, imagine, like, a nest built for an ostrich, you know, like, that's what we're looking at on the ground. And so they do make structured dens, even in places where they're in some sort of, like, cavity. If they've. If they've dug something out of the dirt or if they're in some sort of rock cavity, they will often still bring brush and other things in there to make almost kind of like a bed or a nest.
But for the most part, bears in Pennsylvania den right on top of the ground. Then, like I said, we get into some other kinds of unique dens, like a dugout or a rock cavity. So. And when I say rock cavity, it's not the case.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Right?
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Like you said, that everybody imagines, you know, in the cartoons and, you know, the New York Times or whatever, with all these bears huddling around, sleeping on their big stunts slabs. Like, these cavities are truly cavities. Like, I'm a little claustrophobic. And these cavities, like, give me the heebie jeebies.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Like, how do they get in there?
[00:35:03] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: That's the kind of cavity.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: And here's a fun fact, is bears actually don't have collarbones. So that's part of the reason why you see these really big bears in these places. And you're like, how did you get in this location? You know, you see the 400 pound bear that's like, squeezes out of. I literally have a video from a warden where he scares this bear out from underneath the porch, and he is. It is a big bear. I mean, in the entrance is maybe like eight inches.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Squeezes out. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: I never thought about that. Yeah, they don't have shoulders. I mean, they have shoulders, but they're not, like, stopping them. They can. Yeah. Yeah, that is. That is pretty amazing. And when we talk about dens. So what causes a bear to den? I mean, like, is it weather or is it a combination of things what go through that life cycle of this time of year?
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So basically, what causes a bear to den is a lack of food. Here in Pennsylvania and throughout most of the bear range in that northern tier, we go through winter, right. And obviously it gets cold, but it's not so much the cold that's an issue because, like I just said, we have bears denying right on top of the ground. And I tell you what. The snow practically melts around them sometimes because they have this super thick layer of fat. They got this super thick coat. It's the food, right? And so bears basically enter this denning period because there's not enough food on the landscape to sustain them. And what that Denning period essentially does is they go into a reduced metabolic state, which is kind of interesting and kind of what I was mentioning before, how, like, human doctors are interested in not just bears. I mean, there's many wildlife species, but bears in particular. Because when we think about if a human is in a coma or some sort of very non mobile state for an extended period of time, I mean, we wither away because our metabolic process just continues even though we're not doing anything to kind of help sustain that. Right? And so essentially, bears decrease their metabolic activity upwards of 75%. Their heart rate decreases, their respiration rate decreases. I mean, they go into this mode of safe energy. Now, that does not mean, unlike what we call, what we tend to call, and I put this in, like, quotations, like true hybrid neighbors, they don't go into this, like, super deep state of torpor. So if you take, like, a groundhog, for example, they go into moments of wake, of being awake, and it's normal. Everything's fine. They're up and running. And then they go so deep into this torpor that it's like, literally almost like they're dead. You know, they go to the bottom of the barrel of staying alive. And then they wake up again. And it's a cycle throughout the winter for bears. It's a continuous drop that drops. It stays that way for several months. It actually even stays that way for a few weeks after they leave the den, which is kind of a survival tactic as well, because most of the time when they leave the den, there's some food, but still not quite a bunch. And so essentially, these bears, when they go into the denning period, it's all to save energy during a low food period. Now, that changes a little bit the further south that you get. For example, in Florida, they tend to have more active bears throughout the winter, especially with, like, males, because there tends to be food on the landscape.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: It's always green down there. There's always something to eat.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, I mean, and so, and then, you know, unfortunately, in some places, you may have more activity over the winter. If bears are really heavily reliant on human food resources, which we'll get into.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: They wouldn't do that.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: No, never.
But, yeah, you might see more activity of bears getting into human food resources if it's very abundant on the landscape, which may keep them awake because again, they're getting food, right? So they're getting those calories. They don't necessarily need to go into that hibernation mode.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Does the, this is just totally off the wall and it might be, you might tell me to shut up and that's fine. But like, if you have a year, like this year we had a, in a lot of places we had an incredible mass crop. You know, obviously mass doesn't last forever and like years where the food is very abundant, will that cause them to den a little bit differently or pretty much the same?
[00:39:21] Speaker B: So typically what we see in good mass years is that the Denning period starts later because food's on the landscape. It's worth it for them to stay awake and continue to eat. But if the food is opposite, right, and mass crops, we had maybe an oak failure or something like that, they are going to den a lot earlier. But there are some cases, for example, like pregnant females, they'll den pretty regularly around middle of November. And that's just because, you know, they're now starting their pregnancy. They look to get into their den and they just want to be ready to go and have their spot for when they have their cubs in the middle of January.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: And that's, that's a perfect example of why our regular firearm season is set when it is, you know, and I mean, Mother Nature and just everything, that's, that when we can talk about this for hours, it's just pretty amazing. So, and you kind of talked about the diet and I think, number one, we need to talk about that bears again, I mean, because bears are a great subject here in our state. So we'll, we'll definitely have a part two coming this year. But let's, let's, let's talk about that diet and let's relate it to what we have going on with bear wise because I think it's important that everybody, everybody loves to have a bird feeder out there and everybody, you know, we like to see the birds over the winter, but, you know, let's do it right. Let's, let's talk about that and where we're headed with bear wise. And, you know, just want everybody to pay attention to what's coming out from our agency and, you know, really take it to heart because it's serious. I mean, we, we, and we're one of those states where black bears are to our sports are in the holy grail, but everybody loves them. We're blessed to live in this state where our population is pretty awesome.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I, first and foremost, what I always say about bearwise is I love this resource. And the reason why I love this resource is because it comes from black bear managers. Actually, like myself. I help in creating among a national technical committee and creating the resources and materials that get put out to the public for them to distribute. Which, by the way, we have our own versions of the Bear wise, you know, basics, Bear wise PDF's that you can find on the website, which is bearwise.org, that have our logo on it as well. But you can also go to the website and just download them for free and print them. So if you have a neighborhood that has a bunch of trash problems, like, please feel free to download the Bear wise basics and, you know, any kind of techniques we have on there of trash conflict with black bears, go to the website and feel free to download it, but also feel free to contact us. And the reason why, like I said, I love Bear Wise is a, it's created by managers, but then b, it's easily digestible. I think in kind of what I said in the beginning when I'm talking about all this modeling and math and all these things, like the everyday person, just like, I don't know a lot about carpentry, I don't know a lot about plumbing. I don't know a lot about cars. Like, you know, I joke with my husband all the time, who does know a lot about cars. He starts talking to me, I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Right?
[00:42:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I push this pedal.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: And you're from New Jersey and you push that pedal all the way to the floor. Yeah.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: Like, I have to be reasonable as a biologist and as a manager, too, and realize no one has, or I would say no one, but very few people have the same level of knowledge I do about black bears. So trying to get it down to a level that I would expect someone who specialize in a topic to get down for me so I can understand is really important, crucial. And bearwise does that. I mean, they just put the information in such a concise, clear, consistent message. And we're not the only bearwise member state. There's, I think, over 40 states now throughout the black bear range that are using bear wise to distribute materials, but preventing human bear conflict. But to give everybody the gist of it, you know, why do we say human bear conflict prevention is so important? The number one reason is safety for both bears and people. The circumstances I was talking about before, when you have a close encounter with black bears is often created by the actions that we take. You know, leaving our garbage out twenty four seven and not containing it in any way, shape, or form. Having bird feeders up in the backyard during the summer, when birds don't really need food, they actually need things like housing and nest structures and bird baths and dirt and gravel. And, you know, basically, it's the breeding time for birds here in the summer. So focus on that. Don't focus as much on the food aspect of birdseed and really these items, among many others, because I could talk about this forever, but bring bears in close proximity with people.
Black bears are very reluctant to have a physical encounter with people. However, if the only way out is through you, that is what they're going to do. And even a 15 pound black bear, I can promise you, can do a lot of damage. And they are not easy to handle. They're wild animals. We don't want to encourage them to be close to us because it creates a safety concern for us. It creates a safety concern for black bears. And ultimately, what I tell everybody is, you know, every black bear that gets into your garbage isn't necessarily going to break into your home. But every black bear that's broken into a home has started with things like getting into garbage, ripping down bird feeders, finding pet food on porches, finding dirty grills, finding leftover coolers out of camp site, and rifling through them. It all started with these small behaviors. So that is why these small behaviors are so important to prevent. Because once a bear starts getting into these really dangerous behaviors, like breaking into homes where a close encounter with a person is, like, inevitable, or they start approaching people for food because people have been hand feeding them and doing which, by the way, is illegal in Pennsylvania. Just to make sure everybody understands, right.
These close encounters create really dangerous situations for people, and then we become involved. And often that results in the euthanasia of a bear, which I want to absolutely emphasize is the worst part, by far, of any person working in wildlife biologists are game wardens who are the ones that often respond almost all the time to these conflicts and are the ones that have to put down the bears. Like, nobody wants to do that. And mind you, we don't put down a lot. So I just want to emphasize that. I mean, it's honestly, I wouldn't say more than a dozen bears a year that we actually put down as an agency, which as a whole, for the population out of 18,000 or even 15,000 in previous years is negligible.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: Right. But it's not the bears fault. It's our fault.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: Because, like, I, that, that just hit me between the eyes. I mean, you know, we want to blame something else, but it's really like we've made that bear do that somewhere in its life. Yeah. 100%.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: And so let wild be wild.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Exactly. Let wildlife be wild. I couldn't emphasize that more. Like, that is why we harp so much on these little things and why sometimes you might get a hard time from us of like, hey, I'm not saying fix your compactor for your garbage for the sake of me feeling better. I'm saying it because I really don't want to get to that point again. These circumstances tend to be exceptionally rare, but they can get to that point. And it's our obligation as people to try and live responsibly with wildlife. And so if you have questions, concerns, please always feel free to contact us. But especially, please visit bearwise.org because it is created by and still managed by blackbird biologists like myself. The information comes straight from the horse's mouth and it is a truly wonderful resource. Even our game wardens are all about it from the guys I've spoken to that use it, they're like, oh, yeah, like, I see something, I just take a pamphlet I stick in someone's mailbox, I believe it next to their door, so people know what they can do to help prevent conflict.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: That's awesome. Well, hey, I don't want, I know you have somewhere to go, but we appreciate you more than we can tell you. And thank you for today. And we need to come back and visit this as we get into probably in the fall time of year and talk about bears, because obviously you love bears. I do. And you know that passion speaks for itself. And thank you for everything you do for the black bears in Pennsylvania and for the game commission. I mean, we're lucky to have you and we're glad you're in Pennsylvania. Now, anything else you want to say before we wrap it up?
[00:47:47] Speaker B: No, I think I'm all set. Thank you so much for having me. No problem. I agree. I could talk about bears forever.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: We love it.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: I think we need another story here.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: We're down. We're down. I had a good story in the middle of it, but I was going to keep my mouth shut because you were just going with great stuff. I was in awe the whole time. But thank you again. And thank you for what you do for the pgc thank you.
