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Speaker 1: Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,

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Speaker 1: wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to

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Speaker 1: conserving both. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. In this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're going to dive deep into the conservation history of

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Speaker 1: Mississippi's once celebrated but now controversial native species, the American

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Speaker 1: black bear. We're going to start this episode off by

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Speaker 1: going back and forth between two historical accounts from the

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Speaker 1: same state of Mississippi, separated by nothing but time. The

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Speaker 1: first being clips from local Mississippi news networks, dates ranging

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Speaker 1: from ten years ago to just this past June. The

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Speaker 1: second being excerpt from a book titled The Bear Hunter

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Speaker 1: by James T. McCafferty, which looks into the culture of

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Speaker 1: bear hunting in Mississippi from the eighteen hundreds to the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds. As we flip back and forth between

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Speaker 1: these two sources, I want you to pay attention to

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Speaker 1: the heavy contrast between then and now. Keep in mind

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Speaker 1: both are talking about the same state, but it sounds

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Speaker 1: like two different worlds. We'll kick off first with recent

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Speaker 1: clips from local Mississippi news networks.

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Speaker 2: It's the biggest story on WAPT dot com justin Morgan

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Speaker 2: got a traio camera photo of a black bear roaming

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Speaker 2: in Mississippi. Is this first time you've found one at

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Speaker 2: Sumpson County?

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Speaker 1: I think there have been a couple farther south, but

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Speaker 1: I don't recall one that far north. Excerpts from the

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Speaker 1: book The Bear Hunter by James T.

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Speaker 3: McCafferty.

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Speaker 4: In the nineteenth century, at least among America's sportsmen, the

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Speaker 4: Mississippi Delta was celebrated as a bear hunters mecca. Hunters

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Speaker 4: of means and often those without, flocked to Mississippi to

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Speaker 4: hunt the Delta's black bears.

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Speaker 2: This is remarkable, all right. Action News five's Garner Montgomery

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Speaker 2: joined the Sliven Studio now with an exclusive video he.

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Speaker 4: Shot of a black bear in the Soto County gardener.

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Speaker 5: That's right, Joe, Enjoy. This is a real treat to

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Speaker 5: see the first black bear sighting into Soto County in

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Speaker 5: at least ten years.

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Speaker 4: The Delta woods were full of bears in pioneer times.

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Speaker 4: One account from a man named George F. Maynard born

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Speaker 4: in eighteen fifty three, states so ubiquitous was the bear

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Speaker 4: in Cohoma County of his youth that when farmers failed,

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Speaker 4: oaks to make room for crops, soal bears and their

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Speaker 4: cubs would appear almost immediately to devour tender twigs of

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Speaker 4: the fallen monarchs. It was almost impossible to make a

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Speaker 4: corn crop in some parts of the county on account

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Speaker 4: of the depredations of that famous animal. People would go

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Speaker 4: out in the corn patch early in the morning and

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Speaker 4: kill a bear before breakfast.

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Speaker 5: Black bears are considered an endangered species and the state

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Speaker 5: of Mississippi. They're mostly spotted in the southern Alta, but

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Speaker 5: there have only been a handful of bear sidings here

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Speaker 5: in northwest Mississippi in the past ten years.

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Speaker 1: There were old bear hunters who never had a pound

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Speaker 1: of bacon in the house. They would kill a bear

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Speaker 1: and cure it like bacon, and make and save the

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Speaker 1: oil by the barrel, which was fine for cooking purposes.

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Speaker 1: They are tales of a famed bear hunter named Fincher Bobo,

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Speaker 1: who once killed six bears in a single day. From

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Speaker 1: plantation slave to English noblemen, from backwood squatter to American president,

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Speaker 1: and every station in between.

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Speaker 4: They hunted bears in the Mississippi Delta.

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Speaker 1: Two different accounts, two different time periods, but they're speaking

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Speaker 1: of the same place in the book, it sounds like

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Speaker 1: they're swimming in bears, while on the news report, a

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Speaker 1: black bear siding might as well fall in line with

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Speaker 1: the sasquatch or ufo claim. So the question we have

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Speaker 1: to answer is what happened to the black bears in Mississippi.

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Speaker 1: Luckily for us, it's very well documented. Historically, black bears

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Speaker 1: were abundant throughout Mississippi along with the rest to the southeast.

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Speaker 1: This fact was made obvious by the quotes from the

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Speaker 1: book along with several other publications. There were thousands of

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Speaker 1: them just in Mississippi alone by the early nineteen hundreds.

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Speaker 1: Throwback to the last episode about Miss Fanny Cook, we

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Speaker 1: know how much wildlife destruction was going on then There

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Speaker 1: was an estimate of less than twelve not twelve hundred

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Speaker 1: twelve in the entire state. This almost complete extirpation came

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Speaker 1: as a result of severe over harvest from the fur trade, market, hunting,

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Speaker 1: sport hunting, illegal take, and land use changes that resulted

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Speaker 1: in habitat degradation and loss. As a result of this,

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Speaker 1: the state of Mississippi closed bear hunting in nineteen thirty two.

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Speaker 1: Y'all may recognize this as the same year that the

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Speaker 1: Game and Fish Commission was established, Protecting bears from being

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Speaker 1: wiped out sat high on the priority list, along with

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Speaker 1: white tailed deer and the wild turkeys. That was nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty two. Ninety three years have passed since then. Where

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Speaker 1: are we at with Mississippi black bears now? I think

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Speaker 1: it's time we find out. It's now June of twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five, and the sound that you're hearing is me

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Speaker 1: riding in a side by side with the Mississippi Black

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Speaker 1: Bear Program leader Anthony Ballard. We're in Clavern County, Mississippi,

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Speaker 1: and we're headed to Dart a bear with a tranquilizer

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Speaker 1: that Anthony has caught in one of his traps. Anthony

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Speaker 1: believes this could be one of the biggest bears he's

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Speaker 1: ever caught. I think their only option.

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Speaker 2: I don't.

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Speaker 4: Where's the bear?

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Speaker 2: I mean, are we close to us?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're probably one hundred and fifty yards oh ocurring

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Speaker 3: that he's not.

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Speaker 4: At the end of this stood bark, gotcha, gotcha.

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Speaker 1: What you're hearing now is Anthony loading the dark gun

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Speaker 1: and explaining to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and

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Speaker 1: Parks intern how to chart thes. Once we get the

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Speaker 1: bear sedated and out of the trap, we then set

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Speaker 1: off walking down the long lane food plot that ran

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Speaker 1: the top of a ridge to the bear trap situated

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Speaker 1: at the end of it. The goal is for everyone

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Speaker 1: to move slow and quiet. Anthony wants the bear as

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Speaker 1: calm as possible for the ease of getting a tranquilizer

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Speaker 1: duard into him. The trap is shaped like a cylinder

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Speaker 1: imagine a large barrel laid over on its side. It

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Speaker 1: has a door on one end through which Anthony put

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Speaker 1: bait to lower the bear inside the trap. Anthony can

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Speaker 1: monitor all of this live through the surveillance of a

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Speaker 1: cellular camera. Once the bear is inside, Anthony can drop

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Speaker 1: the trap door electronically. This bear had entered the trap

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Speaker 1: just the night before, so by the time we got there,

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Speaker 1: he had only been there for a matter of hours.

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Speaker 1: You won't man heard a swing around the doorside. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: it carefully kind of drops off over there before before

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Speaker 1: very far as we approach the trap, it's always a

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Speaker 1: little unnerving. I mean, there is a wild bear there

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Speaker 1: after all. The plan is for me to swing to

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Speaker 1: the back end of the trap while Anthony goes to

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Speaker 1: the front. If the bear is in a favorable position,

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Speaker 1: Anthony will go ahead and shoot him with a tranquilizer dark.

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Speaker 1: If not, he'll signal to me and I'll begin tapping

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Speaker 1: on the back of the trap to make noise. Enticing

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Speaker 1: the bear to move. Anthony leans over. The bear is

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Speaker 1: asleep and not in a favorable darting position, so he

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Speaker 1: gives me the signal, and I know it's time to

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Speaker 1: make some noise. Judging off that sound, I think the

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Speaker 1: bear's awake. Yep, that's an awake bear. That bear cannot

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Speaker 1: be any more awake than he is right now. The

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Speaker 1: problem is he's still not in a position for a

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Speaker 1: good shot. So Anthony adjust and I continue to make

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Speaker 1: noise to try and make the bear move around more.

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Speaker 2: His heads.

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Speaker 4: This way, this is a.

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Speaker 1: Game of inches. Anthony can't just wing a dart in

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Speaker 1: there and hope for the best. It has to be precise,

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Speaker 1: and we need the bear to turn just a little

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Speaker 1: bit more. Almost there, and there's the shot, got him.

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Speaker 1: The dart is in and now we wait for it

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Speaker 1: to take effect, which normally takes a few minutes. After

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Speaker 1: we are sertain the bear is unconscious, we open the

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Speaker 1: trap and begin to unload it.

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Speaker 3: We're just gonna lift and pull back toward that tree,

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Speaker 3: say when when.

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Speaker 2: His head.

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Speaker 5: Come on?

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Speaker 3: Man, come on, man, all right.

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Speaker 1: We found out later that this bear weighed four hundred

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Speaker 1: and twelve pounds.

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Speaker 3: All right, let's drive me.

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Speaker 1: Four and twelve pounds. So, as you could imagine, it

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Speaker 1: was no easy task getting him out of the trap.

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Speaker 4: Alright, knock, Holy smokes, Anthony.

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Speaker 1: The rest of the time that we had the bear

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Speaker 1: sedated was somewhere around thirty minutes. In that time, we

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Speaker 1: got his body weight, a hair sample for genetics, a

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Speaker 1: blood sample to test for certain diseases and hormone levels,

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Speaker 1: and a tooth extraction for age. This is vital information

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Speaker 1: for the black bear program. When everything was collected, Anthony

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Speaker 1: injected the bear with a reversal drug. We then walked

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Speaker 1: up the hill where we could watch from a safe distance,

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Speaker 1: and in about ten minutes or so, the bear woke

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Speaker 1: up and bounded off back into the woods. To say

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Speaker 1: this whole thing was a cool experience would be quite

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Speaker 1: the understatement. The opportunity to get to do hands on

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Speaker 1: conservation with such a cool and historic species just doesn't

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Speaker 1: come around all that often, and the Mississippi black bear

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Speaker 1: program is doing some really cool and important work, which

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Speaker 1: I think it's time we all learned about. After this

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Speaker 1: eventful bear work up with Anthony, I sat down with

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Speaker 1: him for an interview so that we all can get

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Speaker 1: a deeper understanding of the Mississippi black bear, the program,

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Speaker 1: as well as the status, future and contra reversy surrounding

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Speaker 1: this native animal.

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Speaker 4: How long has Mississippi had a black bear program.

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Speaker 3: The early work was done by the Museum of Natural Science.

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Speaker 3: And when I say early, we're talking about you know,

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Speaker 3: mid to late nineties.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so nineties, so post Fanny Cook times.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, very much so. And that's just because there

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Speaker 3: weren't really that many bears in Mississippi.

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Speaker 4: There's like twelve.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you had an occasional sighting here and there, you

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Speaker 3: had an occasional roadkill. I mean, we've got records of

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Speaker 3: mortalities all the way back to the seventies. The need

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Speaker 3: for an actual program and for wildlife and Fisheries to

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Speaker 3: take that over came in two thousand and two.

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Speaker 4: And what was the reason for that.

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Speaker 3: In the early two thousands, you had a lot more

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Speaker 3: emphasis on looking at those populations, the subpopulations, particularly in

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Speaker 3: Arkansas and Louisiana, you know, habitat connectivity, looking at interbreeding

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Speaker 3: between different populations to kind of bolster genetic diversity. As

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Speaker 3: a result of that, a lot more dispersal into Mississippi.

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Speaker 3: And so there's there's some connections there of you know,

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Speaker 3: that original you can say, kind of apparent, you know, population,

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Speaker 3: and then those that kind of infant population moving into

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Speaker 3: the delta. More and more soles that were you know,

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Speaker 3: started to breed and reproducing there and then kind of

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Speaker 3: grow from there.

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Speaker 1: So the black bear program was originally formed by the

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Speaker 1: Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, but it was handed off

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Speaker 1: to the Department of Wildlife out of necessity in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and two due to a noticeable increase in bears.

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Speaker 1: This can be attributed to dispersal of bears coming into

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Speaker 1: Mississippi from Arkansas Louisiana, as well as slow but natural

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Speaker 1: growth from the small resident population that was able to

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Speaker 1: do so because of the protections they were provided. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two and just a small personal request here,

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Speaker 1: nobody mentioned to clear breath that Arkansas bears were helping

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Speaker 1: out Mississippi bears. Okay, I mean they just talk enough

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Speaker 1: trash as it is.

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Speaker 4: Let me ask this because I want to.

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Speaker 1: I want to clarify this early to talking about bears

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Speaker 1: moving in from Arkansas and Louisiana. Like, I understand that

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Speaker 1: the let's say that the population of just Mississippi, the

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Speaker 1: black bear population of Mississippi. I understand that we wiped

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Speaker 1: it out to really really low numbers, but we never

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Speaker 1: fully wiped it out, right, that's correct, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So extinction is a species that just goes completely.

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Speaker 2: It's gone.

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Speaker 3: Right, everybody understands that extirpation is gone from a particular

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Speaker 3: region or area of state. We were near extirpation in Mississippi.

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Speaker 3: The lowest estimation was twelve bears in the state that's

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Speaker 3: functionally extirpated. That's essentially none. That's wild.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: You know, people wonder why we don't have as many

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Speaker 3: bears as places like Louisiana or Arkansas. What's for two reasons.

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Speaker 3: Number One, we Arkansas and Louisiana never got quite that

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Speaker 3: low in their population estimates, and they also actively brought

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Speaker 3: bears from up north to bolster those populations. Mississippi never

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Speaker 3: actually did so.

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Speaker 1: Louisian in Arkansas have had bears reintroduced, Yes to some degree, Yes,

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Speaker 1: they had bears reintroduced, and then they also moved bears,

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Speaker 1: you know, within those two states between subpopulations to kind

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Speaker 1: of even out those genetics and kind of foster those

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Speaker 1: numbers and facilitate that connectivity.

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Speaker 3: Mississippi took a more passive approach. There was one attempted restocking,

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Speaker 3: I guess you could say, in nineteen thirty four. It

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Speaker 3: was unsuccessful. It was a I think three pairs, so

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Speaker 3: a total of six bears that were brought here for

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Speaker 3: whatever reason that was not successful. So all of the

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Speaker 3: bears that we have here in Mississippi are either dispersed

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Speaker 3: from higher density populations in Arkansas and Louisiana or they

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Speaker 3: were born here. There were never there were no bears

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Speaker 3: that were actually brought here to Mississippi.

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Speaker 1: I do think it's prudent, though I have to speculate

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Speaker 1: a little bit here, but I do think that it

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Speaker 1: is important that it was tried to.

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Speaker 4: Be reintroduced in nineteen thirty four. I mean, we know

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Speaker 4: because of.

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Speaker 1: The last episode that Fanny Cook established the Game Commission

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty two, and one of the first things

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Speaker 1: they started doing there were several like restocking efforts of

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Speaker 1: native game animals, animals that they wanted to make.

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Speaker 4: Sure were kept around.

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Speaker 1: So immediately upon the establishment of that Game Commission, they

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Speaker 1: started restocking efforts of deer, They started it on turkeys,

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Speaker 1: they started it on quail, and so it's important to

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Speaker 1: know that they tried, and the general public that supported

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Speaker 1: the establishment of that commission, which is now in DWFP.

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Speaker 1: I think it's important to note that they did try

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Speaker 1: to restock them all right Backwoods University enrollees. If there

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Speaker 1: was going to be an exam at the end of

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Speaker 1: this episode, which there's not, but if there was, one

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Speaker 1: of the main takeaways would be this right here. So

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Speaker 1: lean in black bears were not, I repeat, were not

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Speaker 1: reintroduced to Mississippi. In the reilm of controversies surrounding this species,

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Speaker 1: which we're going to dive into in more detail later,

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Speaker 1: the misconception that black bears were wiped out completely and

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Speaker 1: then physically brought back in and reintroduced comes up all

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Speaker 1: the time, and it just isn't the case. They have

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Speaker 1: always been here. But I think it is extremely important

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Speaker 1: that we realized that it was attempted one time to

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Speaker 1: restock them in nineteen thirty four. Here's why. Take a

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Speaker 1: look at the list of animals of which restocking efforts

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Speaker 1: were made. White tailed deer high community value, wild turkeys

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Speaker 1: high community value, bob white quail high community value, Black

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Speaker 1: bears high community value at that time. Remember what the

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Speaker 1: stated reasons were for black bears almost being wiped out

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Speaker 1: in the first place, fur trade, market, hunting, sport, hunting,

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Speaker 1: habitat loss. Think back to quotes from the book and

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Speaker 1: tales of people traveling to Mississippi just to hunt bears.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sitting here claiming that black bears were this

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Speaker 1: perfect species that never caused a single problem. They did

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Speaker 1: as well as many other wildlife species, but they were unarguable,

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Speaker 1: he sought after and valued as a game animal.

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Speaker 3: Of that, I have no doubt. You know, we were

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Speaker 3: talking earlier about the mindset of people moving through history.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's really easy to play money morning quarterback

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Speaker 3: and say, well, these people had the wrong idea about this,

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Speaker 3: or they you know, they completely disregarded this aspect of

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Speaker 3: conservation or whatever the case is. And like you said,

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Speaker 3: I think it's important to kind of put yourself in

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Speaker 3: that situation and maybe understand that you know, they weren't

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Speaker 3: working with Google. You know, they weren't working with major

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Speaker 3: universities that could do big time research. They weren't working

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Speaker 3: with a huge budget, and they were doing what they

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Speaker 3: could with what they had at the time. And I

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Speaker 3: think the important part is they had the right idea,

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Speaker 3: you know, and they may not have done everything exactly right,

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Speaker 3: but it was really a paradigm shift between a mentality

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Speaker 3: of kill everything, it doesn't matter, they'll replenish somehow, just

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Speaker 3: live for the day and take what you want, versus hey,

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Speaker 3: maybe we need to build some longevity into this and

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Speaker 3: some structure and some regulations to where we can preserve

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Speaker 3: the future. I think that's the biggest takeaway from that,

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Speaker 3: And there's.

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Speaker 1: A common thread in that no like talking about like

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Speaker 1: you could go all the way back to the bison

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Speaker 1: episode when Jeremy was explaining to me, he said, a

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Speaker 1: lot of some of the follies in the market hunting

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Speaker 1: with bison is they were misunderstood and people thought they

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Speaker 1: were a migratory animal. So a lot of the market

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Speaker 1: hunters at the time would think, Hey, we can kill

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Speaker 1: every single one of these buffalo. The next herd's going

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Speaker 1: to migrate through so it was like a functional misunderstanding

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Speaker 1: the ecology, and that trickled down all the way to

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds with so many of the game animals.

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Speaker 1: The difference is that things like whitetail and turkey's got

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Speaker 1: a chance to rebound, whereas black bear's. It was just

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a different story, different timeline.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it was a different timeline for

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Speaker 3: reasons may have had to do with management, but also

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Speaker 3: you got to think about the reproductive potential of black

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Speaker 3: bears versus something like deer a turkey. You know, if

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Speaker 3: you've got a good habitat and you've got good nutrition,

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Speaker 3: can that has a high caring capacity, you can make

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Speaker 3: a lot of turkey or a lot of deer in

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Speaker 3: a pretty short amount of time. Black bears don't breed

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Speaker 3: until three to five years of age. They're only going

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Speaker 3: to have two or three and the survival of those

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Speaker 3: cubs are you know, fifty to seventy percent. The timeline

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Speaker 3: in the pattern is just not comparable to something like

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Speaker 3: white tail deer, and it's just not as fast as

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Speaker 3: like you said, it's just on a different timeline.

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Speaker 1: Anthony just gave us one of the most important pieces

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Speaker 1: of information regarding the trajectory and current status of the

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Speaker 1: Mississippi black bear population. We already knew that all these

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Speaker 1: species were almost wiped out in the early nineteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: but what I didn't know was the different dynamics around

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Speaker 1: each of their ability to rebound. Thankfully, white tailed deer

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Speaker 1: and wild turkeys can reproduce relatively quickly, especially when compared

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Speaker 1: to the reproductive timeline of a black bear. I mean,

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Speaker 1: think about it. Many white tailed does begin reproducing at

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Speaker 1: a year old, in some instances even earlier than that,

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Speaker 1: and they typically breed every year, while turkey hens usually

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Speaker 1: start breeding around a year old and they can usually

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Speaker 1: nest every year after that. A black bear, however, does

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Speaker 1: it start breeding until the age three or sometimes five,

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Speaker 1: and may only have two to three cups. The timeline

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Speaker 1: is vastly different, which makes for an unavoidable longer time

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Speaker 1: of population recovery. This explains why, when all these species

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Speaker 1: were pushed to the brink around the same time, black

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Speaker 1: bears are seemingly the last in line on their way

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Speaker 1: to recovery.

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Speaker 4: What is the overall function of the black bear program?

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Speaker 1: Has the function stayed the same from its start with

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Speaker 1: the game and fish in two thousand and two to now,

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Speaker 1: or has it changed a little bit, has there been

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Speaker 1: stuff added to it?

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Speaker 3: I would say it's always changing. Management is never the same, right,

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Speaker 3: you know, the outcomes are different, the goals are different

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Speaker 3: as different species fluctuate and there's different management needs. And

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Speaker 3: it's been the same with the bear program. You know,

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Speaker 3: early on it was a lot about you know, compiling

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Speaker 3: as much data as we could, as many observations as

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Speaker 3: we could, and really trying to just figure out what

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Speaker 3: was going on right with those early populations. And then

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Speaker 3: as that grew, you know, you're still looking at research,

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Speaker 3: You're still looking at these those same type parameters, but

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Speaker 3: you're looking at it on a larger scale because you

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Speaker 3: have more and more area to look at bears in.

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Speaker 3: And then eventually what's going to happen is you go

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Speaker 3: from a preservationist type of approach where harvest is completely banned.

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Speaker 3: You're focusing on allowing that animal to come back to

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Speaker 3: healthy numbers, and eventually the day is going to come

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Speaker 3: where we institute harvest again because we say, okay, you know,

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Speaker 3: the federal protections of black bears were removed in twenty

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Speaker 3: sixteen in Mississippi. At some day, there's going to come

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Speaker 3: a day where we say the state protections are removed

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Speaker 3: and we're now going to implement a hunting season. And

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Speaker 3: you know, people kind of say, all right, well, you're

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Speaker 3: just wanting this species to come back so that we

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Speaker 3: can have a hunting season, And it's really kind of

390
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Speaker 3: the opposite of that. You know, we're having a hunting

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Speaker 3: season because the population is healthy enough now to sustain it.

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Speaker 1: Big important key takeaway number two, y'all ready, the end

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Speaker 1: goal of protecting black bears from nineteen thirty two up

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Speaker 1: until now is to restore them to a sustainable population.

395
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Speaker 1: And can any of y'all guess what is synonymous with

396
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Speaker 1: a sustainable population, A huntable population, a hunting season, a

397
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Speaker 1: return to allowing black bears to be used as a

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Speaker 1: natural and renewable resource, a return to what they were

399
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Speaker 1: sought after and valued for back in their earlier years

400
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Speaker 1: of abundance. And although it is taking a significantly longer

401
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:46,000
Speaker 1: time to get there than it did several other of

402
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Speaker 1: our game species, they are following the same trajectory as

403
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Speaker 1: several other widely celebrated wildlife conservation wins. And when the

404
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Speaker 1: day comes that we reached this milestone with the black

405
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Speaker 1: Bears of Mississippi. In my opinion, it should be so

406
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:03,760
Speaker 1: librated the same. You do hear a lot of like, oh,

407
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Speaker 1: the agency's doing this just so they can make another

408
00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:08,560
Speaker 1: tag and it'll make more money, or you know, and

409
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Speaker 1: it's you get like the kind of the sense that

410
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:14,159
Speaker 1: they're they're almost putting it like his government overreach, and

411
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Speaker 1: you're some people kind of come right out and say, like,

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Speaker 1: we should be able to do what we want kind

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Speaker 1: of thing. And the reason that we don't go and

414
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Speaker 1: just do what we want is it didn't work last week.

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Speaker 3: We tried that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like exactly, people did what they want and that's

417
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Speaker 1: why we started. If we kept on doing what we wanted,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have any deer to be worried.

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Speaker 4: About, right, Like that's just the truth. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Would you say the main goal now of the black

421
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Speaker 1: Bear program is to one day be able to facilitate

422
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Speaker 1: a hunting season. Is that the main goal or is

423
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Speaker 1: there like other priority of goals.

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Speaker 3: I would say there's two main goals. The first main

425
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 3: goal is to have a good solid research foundation to

426
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Speaker 3: make management decisions, because unless you know how many bears

427
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:05,920
Speaker 3: you have. Unless you know how fast your population is growing,

428
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 3: and you can answer those questions, you can't make informed

429
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 3: management decisions about a hunting season. So, you know, the

430
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:15,520
Speaker 3: question always gets asked, how many bears do we have?

431
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:19,239
Speaker 3: And what people want is for me to spit out

432
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:21,200
Speaker 3: an answer we have this between this many and this

433
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 3: many bears. What we're trying to do right now in

434
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 3: the research that we're doing with Mississippi State University, basically

435
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 3: they're building two different models based on the data that

436
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 3: we've collected either here recently or historically throughout the program's history,

437
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 3: and they're building a density estimate. So once you can

438
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,960
Speaker 3: identify enough individuals genetically, you can say, all right, you

439
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:45,479
Speaker 3: probably have this many individuals in this particular area. All right,

440
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 3: So you can extrapolate and say you probably have this

441
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,359
Speaker 3: type of vocumency in this larger area, and eventually you

442
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 3: get to a point where it's representative of an entire

443
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 3: portion of the state or even the whole state.

444
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:56,119
Speaker 4: All right.

445
00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,440
Speaker 3: The second piece of that puzzle, it's called your population

446
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 3: projection model. What that is going to do is we

447
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 3: take all of the historical data that we've ever had,

448
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 3: every mortality we've had all the life spans that we

449
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 3: know of what our immigration immigration from different states is,

450
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 3: how many offspring that bears had, how old were they

451
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:18,879
Speaker 3: when they first had offspring. All of these different things

452
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 3: go into that model to tell you, Okay, here's how

453
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 3: many bears you have. Now, now what is your projected population?

454
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:29,400
Speaker 3: Based on these parameters, what might be your population two, five, ten,

455
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 3: fifteen years from now. At that point you get basically

456
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,919
Speaker 3: a growth curve, right, So then you can start adding

457
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:40,159
Speaker 3: in as a factor something like harvest. Okay, if we

458
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:42,960
Speaker 3: harrest this many bears, and if we harvest this many females,

459
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 3: this many males, how is our population going to react.

460
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 3: That's when you can start sectioning off different parts of

461
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 3: the state, and that's when you can start setting regulations.

462
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 3: That's how those recommendations are come about. And so as

463
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,439
Speaker 3: much as I wish it was just as simple as

464
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 3: counting bears and spending out a number, there's a lot

465
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 3: more that goes into it that you know, we have

466
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 3: to make that informed decision, and we're trying to make

467
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 3: that based on the absolute most homework we can have

468
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 3: done so that we can we can get it right.

469
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 3: Because you know, you only get one shot at that,

470
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:17,239
Speaker 3: and you got to get it right.

471
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: Anthony told me that the question of how many bears

472
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 1: are there in Mississippi sits high atop the list of

473
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 1: questions he gets commonly asked, And if you couldn't tell

474
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: from his response, it's something that they are not taking lightly.

475
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 1: There's a hefty amount of work and research going into it,

476
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: and hopefully it's something that they will have a number

477
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:38,920
Speaker 1: for before the end of this year. A plan to

478
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 1: follow up with Anthony as soon as that number is ready,

479
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: so stay tuned for that. I want to ask him

480
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: how we use this information and how does it play

481
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: into making management decisions and setting hunting seasons.

482
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 3: Most likely what happens is, you know, you'll have different

483
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 3: bear management zones, units, whatever you'd want to call them,

484
00:25:56,280 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 3: and then set harvest regulations on each one of them

485
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 3: according to what your data says.

486
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 4: That last bear work up you and I did, and

487
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 4: you go in there, you dart him, you knock him out,

488
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 4: took a tooth extraction, you took a blood sample, you

489
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 4: took a hair sample, took a body weight, Like what

490
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 4: do you what is all that data for?

491
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 2: Like?

492
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 4: What are you trying to gain from all that the hairs.

493
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 3: For genetics, you can get a lot from genetics, but

494
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,479
Speaker 3: at the very minimum, you can identify that individual because

495
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 3: you can say that in this particular case M. Thirty three,

496
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 3: he was first caught as a you know, X year

497
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:32,239
Speaker 3: old in twenty twenty three, he's now a y year

498
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 3: old in twenty twenty five, and we can say that

499
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,400
Speaker 3: he at least lived from twenty twenty three to twenty five.

500
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 3: The tooth that we pull, we send that off to

501
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 3: a lab. I send all the teeth off once a

502
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 3: year and they do what it's called cementum annualize, so

503
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 3: they'll take a small sliver of that, they'll stay in it,

504
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 3: look at it under microscope, and they can count those

505
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 3: cementum annuli rings like rings on a tree. Because you

506
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 3: have basically a growing in a dormant stage in bears,

507
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 3: that's pretty pronounced, and so in the model it's more

508
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 3: valuable to say that you have a ten year old

509
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 3: versus you have an adult. The blood sample, really it's

510
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 3: just a catalog for me. We spend those down and

511
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,679
Speaker 3: freeze them, and then if we have a let's say

512
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 3: a project that comes up in another year or two

513
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 3: where we say, we want to look at hormone levels

514
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 3: in certain individuals, or we want to look at this

515
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 3: particular you know, tighter for a disease that may have

516
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 3: been president in the population. Now we have you know,

517
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 3: fifty samples to look through, versus starting from zero and

518
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 3: trying to pull blood on bears as we go, gotcha,

519
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 3: And so some of it is more for catalog purposes,

520
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 3: and then some of it is for stuff that we're

521
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 3: actively using. But a workup's work up, and we always

522
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 3: usually pull those things as we go to you know,

523
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 3: to make sure we have them, and it takes you know,

524
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:49,439
Speaker 3: an extra five or ten minutes to get that stuff,

525
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 3: and it really does go a long way in looking

526
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 3: at that data in the long term.

527
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: So think about the end the field bear workup that

528
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: you heard taking place towards the beginning of this episode.

529
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: If you remember, I said that it yields vital information

530
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 1: for the bear program. And now we understand why all

531
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: of this data adds into the model that will help

532
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 1: determine population size, population growth, and helps us make management

533
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,920
Speaker 1: decisions like determining when a hunting season can be reopened.

534
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 1: The nuts and bolts of conservation. Pretty cool, right, somewhere

535
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: in recent years there's been like a significant uptick in

536
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 1: bears just here in Mississippi, And I don't know what

537
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: to attribute that to, like more spillover from Louisiana, more

538
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: spill over from Arkansas. Is that even happening or am

539
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: I just like it?

540
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 2: Was?

541
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 4: There any truth to that?

542
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 3: Well, in your population, you're going to have basically an

543
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 3: inflection point in that growth curve, so you have you know,

544
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:50,239
Speaker 3: if you have very small numbers, you're gonna have very

545
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 3: small growth rates, and then at a certain saturation, that

546
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 3: curve is gonna is gonna steep, gonna get a lot steeper,

547
00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 3: and start to go up at an increasing rate. So

548
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 3: you can start increasing at an increasing rate. So it's

549
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 3: hard to tell exactly where we are on that growth rate,

550
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 3: And again that's kind of why we're doing this research

551
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 3: to see. I think it's been kind of a convergence

552
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 3: of factors because you do have more bears on the landscape,

553
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 3: you have more sightings, but you also have a growing

554
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 3: public awareness of bears in Mississippi. I think a lot

555
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 3: of that can be attributed to social media, a lot

556
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 3: of it can be attributed to security and game cameras,

557
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,479
Speaker 3: just being so readily accessible. There's eyes everywhere. Everybody has

558
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 3: a ring doorbell, everybody has cell cameras that are sending

559
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 3: pictures all the time. There's more people that are leaving

560
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 3: out cameras year round versus just during deer season. Usually

561
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 3: they're on a feeder. And I think all of those

562
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 3: things together has kind of come together and made it

563
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 3: seem like there's just bears all over the place. When

564
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 3: you know, it's quite possible that five different people have

565
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 3: seen the same bear that's gone and visited five feeders.

566
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 3: It's hard to tell how much of that is actually,

567
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 3: you know, is real, and how much of that growth

568
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 3: is is you know, because of the population, and how

569
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 3: much of it is kind of artificially inflated because of

570
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 3: the public awareness and the visibility of bears.

571
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: From my perspective, understanding to a degree what black bears do,

572
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: like how they function, their ecology, all that stuff. I

573
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: think it's awesome that this native animal is being able

574
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 1: to return to its native range here in Mississippi for

575
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: a plethora of reasons. One of them like the possibility

576
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: that there would be a hunting season on those again.

577
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 3: That would be awesome, awesome.

578
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: To be able to hunt a bear here. There's so

579
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: much history with it. Yeah, and there are some people

580
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: that feel that way. There's also a lot of people

581
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: that don't feel that way. There's been a growing amount.

582
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 4: Of controversy around black bears, and I want.

583
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: To tackle some of those topics. Yeah, here's the obvious one,

584
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: or one of the more obvious ones. Bears are dangerous.

585
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: They're gonna eat me, They're gonna eat my kids, They're gonna.

586
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 4: Eat my dog. That's it's like an on going fear

587
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 4: that you see with bears pop up. How do you

588
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 4: deal with that?

589
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 3: It's hard to tell people not to be afraid of things.

590
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 3: I found that it's better to educate people about the

591
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: animal than it is to tell them not to be

592
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 3: afraid of it, right, because when you really boil it

593
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 3: all down, people fear what they don't know. And I

594
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 3: think in a lot of people's minds, it is an

595
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 3: animal that lives somewhere else, and then when they find

596
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 3: out that it lives close to them, they start thinking

597
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 3: about it in a completely different way. Now it's real.

598
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 3: You know, you were asking about the goals of the

599
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 3: program earlier. Research is certainly one of the big ones,

600
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 3: and I think the other half of that coin is education,

601
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,719
Speaker 3: you know, because the more people that we can make

602
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 3: understand what bears are and what they are not and

603
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 3: just a few simple things you know, to get by

604
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 3: with bears around, the more educated public you're going to have.

605
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 3: And I think the more that fear level goes down.

606
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 3: You know, I've taken people out on bear workups that

607
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 3: were absolutely scared to death or hated bears, and then

608
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 3: by the end of it, their mind is completely changed,

609
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 3: or it's at least changed to a point where they

610
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 3: appreciate what we do and the process and the animal

611
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 3: itself versus just being this thing that they completely don't understand.

612
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: Anthony gave us a lot of good information there, but

613
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: the statement that's stuck with me the most, and the

614
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: one that I can't quit thinking about, is people fear

615
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: what they don't know. I also found it interesting that

616
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: he's had firsthand experience taking people out on bear workups

617
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: that initially had negative feelings toward bears, but after seeing

618
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: the animal with their own eyes and getting some actual

619
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: exposure to it, their opinions changed for the positive. I've

620
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: said it before on this podcast, and I'll say it again.

621
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: You can't love what you don't understand. I would encourage

622
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: any of you out there that are currently on the

623
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: negative side, maybe on the fence about black bears in

624
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: their conservation, to give yourself a chance to learn about

625
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: the animal before making a judgment on it. One of

626
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: the things about Mississippi that I love is that we

627
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: do have a very large and popular hunting community. Big

628
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: part of that is white tail deer hunting. One of

629
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: the things that you hear pop up around controversy of

630
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: a growing population of black bears is the fear that

631
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: they are going to basically decimate your deer herd.

632
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 4: You hear that they're really bad.

633
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,959
Speaker 1: On fawns, they eat a lot of fawns. They're gonna, man,

634
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: if you have bears, you're not gonna have any deer.

635
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: I heard one guy say, They're like, wherever you find

636
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: a bear, you ain't gonna find a deer.

637
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 2: Right.

638
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 4: Where do you go with all that? Is there any

639
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 4: truth to that?

640
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 3: The short answer is no. First, let's look at how

641
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 3: many states have bear populations, something like thirty nine or

642
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 3: forty I think most provinces in Canada. I think if

643
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 3: that were the case, then you would have deer populations

644
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 3: that were decimated else most of North America. We know

645
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 3: that falls are going to get eaten by predators. Okay,

646
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 3: that's a fact of life. There's a certain percentage every

647
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 3: year that you can expect to get eaten by predators.

648
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 3: Some of those predators are bobcats, coyotes, and black bears.

649
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 3: We know that black bearries will eat them opportunistically, right,

650
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 3: And there's studies that I've looked at from Virginia, from Michigan,

651
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 3: from even Tensaul, Louisiana that say that essentially, yes, there's

652
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 3: going to be predation. There's a certain percentage that are

653
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 3: going to get eaten. So let's say somewhere between twenty

654
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:38,239
Speaker 3: and thirty percent is what you normally see survival rate.

655
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,719
Speaker 3: That's the ones that actually make it to let's say

656
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 3: six months old. Okay, that's seventy odd percent of falls

657
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 3: that are getting eaten, is going to say, relatively constant

658
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 3: through time.

659
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 4: Right, regardless of BlackBerry presents are not right due to predation.

660
00:34:56,160 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 3: Now, what proportions are eaten by coyotes, bobcats, or black

661
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 3: bears may change depending on the density of those predators

662
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 3: on the landscape. So basically you're talking about the difference

663
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 3: between additive or compensatory predation. All right, So basically, let's

664
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 3: take Tensaw as an example. Let's say we had Tensaw

665
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 3: that had was only a two predator system, so you

666
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 3: only had coyotes and bobcats, and then the recovery of

667
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 3: the black bear happened, and over time you have a

668
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 3: greater and greater density of black bears. That doesn't mean

669
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 3: you have a greater and greater proportion of white tailed

670
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 3: deer falls that are getting predated. It means that those

671
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 3: proportions within that percentage that are getting predated upon is changing,

672
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 3: so that Faon would have gotten eaten now he's getting

673
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 3: eaten by a black bear, whereas without the black bear

674
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 3: he might have gotten even by a kyot or bobcat.

675
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty reductive to say that there's one

676
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 3: particular predator that can cause these huge shifts when the

677
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 3: data just doesn't bear that out. Has it happened locally somewhere, maybe,

678
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 3: but on the grand scheme of thing on a landscape level,

679
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 3: it just doesn't seem to be the case. Let's take

680
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 3: that a step further. The Bacheler lands within the Mississippi

681
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 3: River all right. You have these big islands and these

682
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 3: big money camps where it's you know, hundreds of thousands

683
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 3: of dollars to buy a share, and that's some of

684
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 3: the most salt after deer hunting and turkey hunting in

685
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 3: the southeast, maybe in the country. Very well managed deer

686
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 3: herds out of this world. Genetics, great nutrition, super healthy

687
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 3: deer herds, right, great turkey populations, abundant turkey populations. And

688
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 3: most of those areas up and down the Misissippi River

689
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 3: are absolutely stacked with black bears. And you know, if

690
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 3: that were the case, and if black bears had that

691
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 3: big of a negative population on deer or turkey, that's

692
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 3: not what you would see in those areas.

693
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: Is there any particular animal that on a population level

694
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: suffers from the presence of black bears that we know of?

695
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 3: I mean, about ninety percent of a bear's diet, you know,

696
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 3: eighties and ninety percent is going to be a plant

697
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 3: matter of some sort.

698
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, hear me out.

699
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 1: The concern of not wanting other native game populations to

700
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:14,320
Speaker 1: suffer is a legitimate concern. However, what Anthony is telling

701
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: us here is that with bears, this is not something

702
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: to worry about not only does current research prove it,

703
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: but think about the historical record of Mississippi from earlier

704
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: prior to our own decimation of these species, Mississippi had

705
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: white tailed deer, wild turkeys, bob white quail, bison, and

706
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:35,439
Speaker 1: black bears all in abundance, along with many other game

707
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: and non game species. I don't know, it's almost like

708
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 1: God designed it to be that way or something crazy, right,

709
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: So in like the grand scope, like if you were

710
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: to take all this stuff that people are hinging on

711
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: for reasons that they don't like bears for all these

712
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: different factors, or they're just some people are just scared

713
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: of them. Some of these folks not all the way

714
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: that they are talking about bears. It leads me to

715
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: ask the question, I'm like.

716
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 4: What would you like us to do?

717
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:08,320
Speaker 1: Are you suggesting that we exterminate them? Because like some

718
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 1: of the folks that come up with that, it's like

719
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: that's what they actually are suggesting that we exterminate the bears,

720
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: and most of these are part of the hunting community.

721
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: My response to that is, like, name a single time

722
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 1: in our conservation history and our history with wildlife as

723
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: a hunting community, as a sustainable hunting community, because that's

724
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: what we are name a time in our history where

725
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,280
Speaker 1: we have elected to wipe out a native animal.

726
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:36,720
Speaker 3: Humans have an, I guess an intrinsic way of looking

727
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 3: at wildlife as how they benefit from that species. Right, Yeah,

728
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 3: So we look at whitetail deer, we hold it as

729
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 3: a very valuable species. We look at turkey, we say

730
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 3: they're very valuable because we hunt turkey, we consume turkey,

731
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 3: we enjoy turkey. There's nothing wrong with that. We don't

732
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 3: look at armadillo's with that same value.

733
00:38:56,600 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: Right.

734
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 3: So a lot of the way that we look at

735
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 3: the inherent value of different vcs is based on kind

736
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 3: of a self serving attitude. So I think that's part

737
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 3: of it. And once there is an opportunity that's opened

738
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 3: up bears as a resource, I think a lot of

739
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 3: that's going to go away. One of the questions I

740
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 3: get a lot of times is what good do bear do?

741
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 3: I think what they're really saying is what do they

742
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 3: do for me? What good are they for me? And

743
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 3: you know, my question back to those people a lot

744
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:27,800
Speaker 3: of times is what good is a wild turkey? What

745
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 3: does a wild turkey do biologically that we couldn't do without. Well,

746
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 3: that's blasphemy. You can't say that, you know, but you

747
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 3: think about it, you know. And the reason that we

748
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 3: value them as humans so much is because they liked

749
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 3: to hunt them and we benefit from that. They're they're pretty,

750
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 3: and we enjoy them. And believe me, I'm not hating

751
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 3: on turkey hunters, sure, but it's kind of that same principle,

752
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 3: and so I look at it more of a kind

753
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 3: of an on a historic scale, our conservation story is

754
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 3: based on recognizing the damages that we were doing and

755
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 3: then taking steps over the next years and decades, in

756
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 3: centuries even to right those wrongs and to try to

757
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 3: rebuild that in a in a responsible way that benefits

758
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 3: the animals where we have you know, good huntable, sustainable populations,

759
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 3: and also doesn't encroach on people, on the rights of humans.

760
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 3: And it's a delicate balance, you know. And it's also

761
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 3: it can be particularly delicate with bears because they do

762
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 3: CAUs you know, damage, and and they do get into things.

763
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm not I'm not going to sit

764
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 3: here and say that they don't. And no bear managers

765
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,839
Speaker 3: is naive enough to say that they you know, that's

766
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 3: not an issue, but it's it's one of those things

767
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 3: where I feel like it goes a lot back to education.

768
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 3: And you know, once you can start building those little

769
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 3: things in to make people's lives easier that do live

770
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 3: around bears, and once you start building those habits in,

771
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 3: then you can start appreciating the species on a more

772
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 3: greater level than what do they do for for me immediately.

773
00:40:57,480 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 3: And I mean, you know, there's there's all kinds of

774
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 3: animals that can be nuisance. You know, you got to

775
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 3: think about the biology of the animal.

776
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: Right.

777
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 3: Bears have a seven times better sense of smell than bloodhounds.

778
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 3: That's quite a sniffer, right, And they're biologically wired specifically

779
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 3: during certain times of the year to find food, to

780
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 3: find it in abundance, and it takes a lot of

781
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 3: food to support a three to four hundred pound animal, right.

782
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:28,760
Speaker 3: So you know, you hear about nuisance bears and problem

783
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,760
Speaker 3: bears and that kind of stuff, and certainly that can happen.

784
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:37,400
Speaker 3: But let's take of a deer feeder, for instance. Regardless

785
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,400
Speaker 3: of your feelings on deer feeders, we can agree that

786
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 3: basically what you're doing is putting out several hundred pounds

787
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 3: of free calories out in the middle of the woods.

788
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 2: A bear is.

789
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 3: Biologically wired to find large amounts of calories at one

790
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 3: time and try to consume that, and so, yes, it's aggravating,

791
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 3: and I sympathize with people that lose you know, cameras

792
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:00,080
Speaker 3: and four wheeler seats and that kind of stuff. But

793
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 3: you know, bears are biologically wires to find food. They're

794
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 3: naturally curious, they're very strong, and they're very intelligent. They're

795
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 3: really good at getting any things. And it kind of

796
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,360
Speaker 3: goes back to that. The thing I tell people sometimes is,

797
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 3: you know, it's not my job to make you like bears.

798
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 3: It's my job to make you prepared to understand the

799
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,879
Speaker 3: how to live with bears. Because the more of those

800
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:26,400
Speaker 3: little things that you can build into your daily routine,

801
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,240
Speaker 3: talking about, you know, driving a truck instead of walking,

802
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 3: taking a garbage can out the day of versus the

803
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:35,959
Speaker 3: night before, those little small changes in your daily life

804
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 3: that could potentially keep a bear off your property, keep

805
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 3: food out of a bear's mouth that would have otherwise

806
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 3: found it. That's when you start trying to kind of

807
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 3: win the battle of you know, living with bears and

808
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 3: solving those problems before they occur. Ask a farmer if

809
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,800
Speaker 3: a deer can be a nuisance, you know, but but

810
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,279
Speaker 3: we value deer right right, And so it's always this

811
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 3: balance of how do we get around those things and

812
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:09,320
Speaker 3: how do we mitigate those conflicts while also maintaining that

813
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:12,800
Speaker 3: whole balance that we're trying to maintain between wildlife and humans.

814
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 3: Black bears, deer, turkey are all native wildlife species. They

815
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:22,200
Speaker 3: have cohabitated for longer than we've been here. And you know,

816
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 3: it's not like it's an invasive species that are being

817
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:29,720
Speaker 3: brought in that have been brought in. They're native species,

818
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 3: and you know, native species find a way to create

819
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 3: an equilibrium and to survive with each other versus an

820
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 3: invasive species that throw that balance off.

821
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 1: I truly think that with time and more access to

822
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: bears as a resource, a lot of the controversy around

823
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: this will dissipate, and the fact of the matter is

824
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: the population is growing. To wrap this up, I want

825
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:57,840
Speaker 1: to ask Anthony how he feels to be in his

826
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: position at such a critical moment in this conservation story.

827
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 3: From a historical perspective, it just doesn't get any cooler.

828
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 3: Man like to be a part of the teddy Roosevelt

829
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 3: story and the whole Collier stories and the Robert Bobos

830
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 3: and the historical figures through time that have shaped our

831
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 3: habitat and have shaped our history. And to be part

832
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 3: of the North American wildlife model and the recovery of

833
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 3: one of the most recognizable and charismatic species in the world,

834
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 3: there's just nothing cooler than that.

835
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 2: And to be.

836
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,399
Speaker 3: A part of an eventual hunting season that comes back

837
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 3: to Mississippi for the first time since those days is man,

838
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 3: that's just a flag on the moon moment, you know,

839
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 3: and it's you know, it's kind of hard to be

840
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 3: in this position without acknowledging all of those people that came,

841
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 3: you know, the biologists that busted their behind for decades,

842
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 3: you know, to kind of get us where we are.

843
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 3: And we were talking about the different timelines. You know,

844
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:13,279
Speaker 3: nobody that I work with have been able to see

845
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 3: the first hunting seasons back again on those species. I

846
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 3: think this is the last really like one of the

847
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 3: greatest recovery stories and conservation stories in our state's history.

848
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,440
Speaker 3: And man, it just does not get any cooler than that.

849
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 3: To be part of that next chapter.

850
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: You know, our history with our wild life and our

851
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 1: wild lands is complicated, but it has yielded some incredible

852
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: success stories through the power of conservation, and I think

853
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: we have a real shot at having another success stories

854
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:49,879
Speaker 1: with the Mississippi Black Bears. And believe me, the day

855
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 1: that that hunting season gets opened up in Mississippi, I'll

856
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 1: be somewhere doing a victory dance. It's just too cool

857
00:45:55,719 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 1: to not celebrate. I want to thank all of you

858
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,800
Speaker 1: for listening to Backwoods University as well as Bear Grease

859
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 1: in this country life, and I want to give a

860
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: big shout out to ONEX Hunt for making this podcast possible.

861
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: If you like this episode, share it with your friends

862
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 1: and family this week and stick around because there's a

863
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: whole lot more on the way.