The black bear: Amazing, adaptable, back at home
Today is a 无毛视频渂ear-hunting time-out无毛视频� of sorts. The statewide firearms bear season opened yesterday but bear hunters must wait through Sunday to get to the rest of the hunt, which runs through Nov. 25.
Bear season无毛视频檚 popularity has exploded here over the past two decades, rivaling even deer season in some parts of the local mountains. When hunters of my age were kids, and 无毛视频渉unting season无毛视频� meant kicking through blackberries to roust rabbits, we never heard of a bear in this region. Today Fayette sometimes cracks Pennsylvania无毛视频檚 无毛视频淭op 10无毛视频� counties in bears tagged.
How did that shift from bear-less to bear-haven happen so fast? And do we give ample thought to what amazing animals these black bears are?
Unlike the ceaseless untrue rumors about the Game Commission stocking coyotes, mountain lions and even wolves, the agency really did release bears into the region无毛视频檚 woodlands. Between 1979 and 1984, biologists trapped 72 bears, including 22 pregnant females or females with cubs, in northcentral Pennsylvania and liberated them on Somerset and Westmoreland counties无毛视频� upland ridges. Those implants plus transients from West Virginia multiplied and spread all over the Laurel Highlands and beyond.
But, in a way, those relocated bears weren无毛视频檛 just thrust into alien territory. They were reclaiming their species无毛视频� old haunts. Like much of the continent, this region had robust black bear populations for thousands of years before they were temporarily exterminated in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In his entertaining first-person account 无毛视频淔orty-Four Years a Hunter,无毛视频� frontiersman Meshach Browning wrote about hundreds of bear encounters无毛视频搈ost of them lethal to the bear无毛视频搃n western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania in the 1830s.
Along the National Road, just south of the Pennsylvania border in Garrett County, MD an historical marker notes the nearby Bear Camp of General Braddock无毛视频檚 British army, used for a brief rest during his 1755 campaign against the French at Fort Duquesne. It无毛视频檚 unclear how Bear Camp got that name but Sir William Johnson, paymaster to the army, wrote the following in his journal (Johnson无毛视频檚 spelling) as the long redcoat column labored over the Alleghenies: 无毛视频淲e pursued our route throgh a desolate country, uninhabited by anything but wild Indians, bears and rattlesnakes.无毛视频�
Bears were important totems, allies and adversaries in the stories of this region无毛视频檚 Native people. Where we look at the night sky and see a utensil in the stars无毛视频搕he Big Dipper 无毛视频� Seneca people saw a great bear (the vessel) pursued by three hunters (the handle). Among the Seneca this cosmic bear hunt even accounted for the signs of the seasons. When the bear 无毛视频渢urned over无毛视频� in the sky as it does even now every fall, the Seneca said the hunters had killed the bear. Its dripping blood colored the leaves of the autumn trees. Later, when the hunters cooked the meat for their meal its dripping fat covered the ground below in white.
Even from a less fanciful perspective, black bears are still remarkable creatures. Their original range was wider than any mammal except the mountain lion, at home in hardwood forest, pine and spruce expanse, prairie, swamp, desert, and alpine heights from Alaska to Mexico and Florida. It still occupies much of that range except intensively farmed plains or urban places.
Black bears can live 10 or more years in the wild and have reached 30 in captivity. Individual adult males may range over 50,000 acres (twice the size of Ohiopyle State Park) while females with cubs may stay within 500 acres (roughly comparable to downtown Uniontown) if food is abundant. By the way, most bears that wander through Uniontown suburbs and other residential neighborhoods are likely young males, departed from their mothers无毛视频� territory and in search of their own new zone.
Male black bears around North America typically reach maximum weights of around 500 pounds but Pennsylvania bears often grow larger. Our diverse landscape with high-calorie hardwood mast 无毛视频� acorns, beechnuts and the occasional chestnut lode 无毛视频� coupled with nearby cornfields pile the pounds on bears. And when you无毛视频檙e trying to gain weight before winter, it doesn无毛视频檛 hurt to raid the occasional dumpster or garbage can. Until quite recently, the largest known black bear ever killed by a modern-day hunter (based on skull measurement) came from Fayette County无毛视频檚 mountains above Dunbar.
Most black bears are jet-black in color but black bears can also be blonde, 无毛视频渃innamon,无毛视频� silver or even white. Cinnamon black bears 无毛视频� rusty-red in color 无毛视频� are common in the West and occur frequently here in Pennsylvania. Among the mist-shrouded coastal forests of western Canada an all-white race of black bears feeds on salmon. But genetically, they无毛视频檙e all black bears, differing only in the tint of the pelt.
Agile tree-climbers, black bears ascend to the canopy to gorge on wild cherries, grapes, juneberries or to raid bee colonies of honey and larvae.
A friend in Somerset County related how he无毛视频檇 watched a bear from his tree stand while bowhunting deer. The bear moved about in a nearby wild cherry, breaking branches and stripping off the fruit with its lips and tongue.
Black bears mate in early summer but the fertilized egg does not implant on the uterus until after the female enters hibernation in early winter. Cubs are born blind, helpless and tiny in the winter den and remain with the female through the autumn, sometimes denning with her the following winter. After that they无毛视频檙e on their own and the female mates again.
Hunting black bears is a desirable management tool in regions such as ours, where burgeoning bear populations sometimes conflict with human interests. But it无毛视频檚 worth noting that bears are more than targets. Black bears are amazing mammals.
And something like the way a bear made the sky a storied place for the Seneca; bears make our woods feel a little wilder, a little more like they should.