Thanks to conservation programs the black bear is returning to Oklahoma forests.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Conservation programs and forest restoration projects are being credited for the return of black bears to the rugged woods of northeastern Oklahoma.
Wildlife biologists and conservationists says the bears — absent from the region since the early 1900s — are returning as the region’s landscape becomes more natural and more inhabitable for the bears.
Others foresee a hunting season. Legislation to create a special license for hunting black bears was proposed last spring but was not be heard in the state House over concerns about conservation of the animals.
Black bears are native to Oklahoma, but were hunted out of the state from the late 1800s to early 1900s.
After they were introduced to Arkansas in the 1960s, they slowly began making their way into Oklahoma, and the state’s black bear population is now estimated at between 200 and 500, according to the state Department of Wildlife Conservation. Most live in the southeastern part of the state, in the Ouachita Mountains.
Now the expansion has turned northward, as the bears move along rivers and streams that traverse wooded, hilly areas in far eastern Oklahoma.
A worker at the Nature Conservancy’s J.T. Nickel Family Nature and Wildlife Preserve, northeast of Tahlequah, first spotted one of the bears on the group’s 17,000-acre restoration project two weeks ago.
Chris Wilson, director of the preserve, said the forest is more natural now than seven years ago when it was a cattle ranch, making the find easier.
Blackberries and small blueberries — food for the bears — now grow on mountain slopes because Wilson’s environmental group has been burning the forest on a regular basis to encourage diverse vegetation to grow again.
That burning is intended to mimic the way American Indians used to treat the land.
“Native Americans have been part of this landscape as long as some of these species have been here,” Wilson said. “The Ozarks, this oak pine ecosystem, has never existed in the absence of regular, human-set fires.”
Smith says it would not be helpful to wait for natural fires. The forest isn’t adapted to that, he said, it’s adapted to being used by people.
Fire “opens up” the forest and lets native savannahs grow back in the valleys of the mountains. Left unburned, huge trees take over low- and high-elevation areas. Plant life becomes much less diverse. Consequently, so does the wildlife, he said.
Not everyone sees this naturalization of the land as beneficial. Humans who live in the area tend not to set fires, but they do leave trash bins outside their houses, attracting bears.
Jeff Ford, a wildlife biologist and bear expert with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, said bears are “opportunists” that dig for trash in southeast Oklahoma.
The presence of dead, cooked food makes them turn away from the forest, he said.
“If there was a dead chicken and a hot dog lying on the ground, they’ll eat the hot dog before they eat the chicken,” he said. “They just prefer cooked food.”
Joe Hemphill, the Wildlife Department’s black bear coordinator, said a hunting season may be needed for the bears.
“It’s not a good situation,” he said of the fact that bears are coming in contact with people who live in the mountains. He pointed to bear kills in Arkansas that resulted from people feeding bears.
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