WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A BEAR IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD?

by Whit Gibbons

June 8, 2008

Last week I heard about a dramatic environmental observation. The caller, Teresa, was a former colleague who had heard all kinds of environmental tales from people calling or emailing over the years when we worked together. So when she said, "I just saw something in our yard that I thought you should know about," I was attentive.

"Do bears live around here?" she asked. "Because I just saw one walking through our yard!" I responded that black bears had been reported in South Carolina on rare occasions, but very seldom in residential areas, and then asked, "Did you get a photograph?"

"I was too busy picking up the dog and getting inside," she replied. "That bear was much bigger than the dog." Despite her understandable response, black bears cause few injuries to people who don't try to feed them or pick up their babies. Not sure what the dog's fate might have been.

The American black bear is one of eight species of bears that inhabit the earth today, and is among the least threatened environmentally. The cave bear, which went extinct less than 10,000 years ago, would have made nine. According to "Walker's Mammals of the World" by R. M. Nowak (1999, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore), bears are divided into subgroups based on the closeness of their evolutionary relationships. One taxonomic scheme places the American black bear in a group with brown (including the grizzlies), Asiatic black, polar, sun, and sloth bears. The spectacled bear of South America and the panda of China are alone in separate subfamilies.

Black bears seem to be doing well, but some species of bears are probably not far from becoming extinct in the wild. The Malayan sun bear is the smallest bear in the world, seldom reaching 150 pounds. Because of overhunting, logging of forests, and poorly regulated laws, sun bears are declining throughout their Asian range. Another Asian species, the sloth bear, is a shaggy black beast with a light-colored V or Y on its chest. These bears eat termites from large mounds by sucking them up like a vacuum cleaner. Estimates are that fewer than 10,000 remain in the wild, yet up to 1,000 are killed each year for the absurd tradition of eating their gall bladders.

The plight of the panda is widely known. Other than noting that they are very cute, eat bamboo, and are disappearing at about the same rate as the Chinese landscape, what's to be said about giant pandas? You can be executed for poaching pandas in China. Pandas are also a great example of the complexity of determining evolutionary relationships. Where do they fit in the tree of life? Some scientists consider them to be in the same family as raccoons, but most authorities place them in the same family as bears. Wherever pandas belong on the evolutionary scale, their future in the wild is in danger. Who knows what the fate will be for the little-known spectacled bear? These dark-colored bears with white circles around the eyes are reportedly declining throughout most of their range because of habitat loss and being overhunted in Peru and Venezuela.

Polar bear habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate. If the current environmental trajectory continues, it will mean the end of the species. Unless public attitudes about habitat protection, global warming, and the importance of letting other species share the planet with us change--and soon--most of today's bears may shortly join the extinct cave bear in that black hole called extinction.

What should you do if you see a black bear walking through your yard? Let it wander wherever it chooses or report it to animal control? To me, either option sounds fine. Just don't feed it or try to treat it like a pet. Getting to see a free-ranging bear up close, especially outside of Great Smoky Mountains National Park or other areas where they are protected, makes for a memorable experience. The thrill of seeing a black bear anywhere would surpass most other wildlife sightings, and to know that enough of them are still around for one to amble through a suburban neighborhood is kind of exciting.



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