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Five bear sightings have been confirmed in Iowa this year, the first since 2005. And in Wisconsin, wildlife officials reported this summer the state may have twice as many black bears as previously believed.
Black bear populations are either increasing or moving in some Midwestern states, raising the chances of confrontations with humans in unexpected places like Terry Cook’s front yard in rural Jackson County.
Cook, 66, went to bed one night last week and soon heard a telltale rattling sound outside. When he looked out the window, he expected to see squirrels or raccoons breaking into his birdfeeders, an ongoing issue for the Henrietta Township man.
“It took me a while to comprehend what I was seeing,” Cook said of the scene outside his house, roughly 60 miles west of Detroit. “There was a big bear, chewing on the feeder and busting up the plastic. I was just in shock, really.”
While the bear didn’t hurt anyone, it’s those kinds of sightings that have state wildlife officials eager to update their bear management plan. They’ll try to get a better fix on the bear population, and what to do about it, with a series of community meetings this month. The state Department of Natural Resources will help gather information over the next nine months with the goal of having a draft management plan by winter 2009.
About 90 percent of Michigan’s estimated 15,000 to 19,000 black bears are thought to live in the state’s Upper Peninsula, at least 250 miles north of Cook’s home in the southern Lower Peninsula.
But the state’s black bear population has edged southward over the past decade or so, likely squeezed out of their homes by suburban sprawl or to avoid territory where a larger bear already rules. Most often, a bear sighted in a new location especially in the spring turns out to be a young male on the prowl for food or an undisturbed home.
“It’s a normal behavior,” said Adam Bump, the DNR’s bear specialist. “They’re looking for unoccupied territory.”
Rarely has that location been in Battle Creek about 40 miles from the Indiana border. So police were shocked to find a bear standing in the middle of a northside neighborhood street about 2 a.m. one morning this spring. The bear scrambled between houses and climbed backyard fences while officers shot at him. The bear was hit by a patrol car and scrambled up a pine tree by an elementary school, where police shot and killed him.
Other sightings over the past few years abound.
A young bear was struck and killed by a car in Ada, less than 10 miles east of Grand Rapids, in 2007. A 135-pound bear was killed in 2006 after being struck by at least three vehicles on I-75 in urban Flint Township.
In the Lansing area in 2005, a bear was seen in a Wal-Mart parking lot north of the state’s capital city, another in a residential neighborhood just west of town.
Two black bears have been shot in Iowa this year, among the state’s five confirmed sightings. Wildlife officials speculate the bears may have wandered in from neighboring Minnesota or Missouri, although they haven’t ruled out the possibility some of the bears may have been released into the wild by former owners or escaped from their holding pens.
Wisconsin officials now estimate their black bear population is about 26,000, twice as many as previously thought, based on preliminary results of a study coordinated by the University of Wisconsin.
That’s no surprise to residents of northern Wisconsin’s Rusk County, which reported 11 bear-vehicle accidents this year through July. That’s up from eight for all of 2007.
There also are more bear complaints in and around Ladysmith, the county’s biggest city with a population of about 3,600.
“They’re hitting garbage cans and bird feeders, looking for something to eat,” Rusk County Sheriff David Kaminski said. “People need to be aware they’re out there.”
