Bringing back the bear necessities

A few weeks ago, BREC’s Baton Rouge zoo’s Louisiana black bear died from complications of a twisted colon. Friends of the Zoo marketing director Mary Woods says Bo will be missed both by the keepers and visitors, who delighted at his tree climbing antics.

Paul Davidson, executive director of the Black Bear Conservation Committee since 1992, remembers Bo for another reason. “He was a nuisance bear, or wayward bear. He was found near Port Allen in a cornfield, moved across the highway and released. Later, he reappeared in LaRose and then near Gheens at a soft-shell crawfish facility and was moved Sherburne Wildlife Management Area. A few days later, he went to Lafayette, and we found him at the intersection of I-10 and I-49. It’s three strikes and you’re out. Obviously, he was going to get into trouble and get hurt. Bears like that get put in accredited zoos.”

So, “the nuisance bear” came to live at the Baton Rouge Zoo in 1997 and was quickly introduced to his adoring public. “We were honored to provide him sanctuary after it was determined by Wildlife and Fisheries that he could not be returned to the wild,” says zoo director Phil Frost.

When Bo first came to the zoo, the future of the Louisiana black bear was bleak. However, with the last two decades, the state has made tremendous strides in bringing back of the Louisiana black bear.

Although zoo visitors may not have realized it, a bear like Bo inspired the creation of a cherished childhood companion. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt headed up a hunting party on a Mississippi expedition. After plodding around in the wilderness with no sign of game, a guide tracked down and tethered a black bear and offered the president the opportunity to shoot the critter. The president declined.

Shortly afterward, political cartoonist Clifford Berryman immortalized Roosevelt ‘s sporting gesture in illustration. Shortly afterward, a Brooklyn shop owner asked Roosevelt for permission to call the stuffed animals he manufactured “teddy’s bears, as a reminder of the bear Roosevelt had set free.

Ironically, as the toy’s popularity skyrocketed, its Southern habitat — and by extension the bears themselves — diminished. As reclaimed swamps gave way to farmland and papermills, development in the Delta disturbed the black bear habitat and by 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service planned to list the Louisiana black bear as a threatened subspecies under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act generated controversy.

In the late 1980s, the endangered species designation of the Northern spotted owl met with disaster in the Pacific Northwest. Environmentalists and the logging industry fought over federal land. Since 90% of the state’s forested, black bear habitat is privately owned, Louisiana landowners and conservationists were poised for an even bigger battle.

While some conservationists supported the regulations as the bear’s salvation, others believed the regulations would reduce the flexibility and incentive necessary for bear management. Property owners feared the listing would result in restrictions on land use. “Bears roam five to 50,000 acres. If a bear is perceived as a hindrance to economic development, people let the air out of bears,” Davidson explains.

Adding to the tension were national advocacy groups hungry for test cases. To avoid lengthy litigation, the Wildlife and Recreation Committee of the Louisiana Forestry Association convened a meeting that with oil/gas, farmers, forestry, environmentalists, Sierra Club, International Paper, Georgia Pacific, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries, representatives from bear programs in Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas and interested citizens. “It was very inclusive, and we a greed being confrontational and adversarial only benefitted the lawyers,” Davidson says, “We try to move the process in a collaborative effort and formed the Black Bear Conservation Committee (BBCC).”

For nearly 30 years, the consortium has sought the reversal of factors that contributed to the bear’s decline. Davidson attributes the group’s success and longevity to its participants’ determination to build coalitions, avoid conflicts and replace emotion with credible science throughout the management process.

In 1990, the USDA’s Wetland Reserves Program advanced BBCC’s agenda. The initiative pays farmers for conservation easement — either perpetual or in 30-year increments — non-productive farmland and up to 75% of the cost to restore wetlands habitat. By April 2007, there were 9,951 projects nationwide on nearly 2 million acres enrolled in the program.

And it hasn’t taken long for the restoration efforts to show results. “When Roosevelt came hunting down then, bears were rare. You could hunt for a week or two and not find a bear. There are more today than 100 years ago,” Davidson says, “They are in Madison and Tensas parishes, upper Pointe Coupee, coastal St. Mary and Iberia parishes. The population has grown steadily. There are a lot more bears than we ever thought.”

While the committee’s successes are chronicled in How to Wrestle a Bear – and Win: The Story of the Black Bear Conservation Committee, the committee has garnered national conservation awards, including the Wildlife Management Institute Touchstone Award, Wildlife Society Group Conservation Award, Chevron Conservation Award, Special Commendation from the U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Service and National Award for Environmental Sustainability from Renew America.

While BBCC appreciates the recognition, there are greater rewards. Davidson says, “The bears are the poster child for restoration. The [replanted] trees delete carbon dioxide, help with the water quality and erosion and bring stability of the agricultural commodities and rural communities by investing money in non-productive farmland. We have also changed the way the endangered species act is administered.”

BBCC has also begun festivals to demonstrate a healthy bear population can be an asset to the community and the Louisiana black bear can coexist with other land use objectives. Of course, that doesn’t mean another Bo won’t come along.

Woods says the Baton Rouge zoo is not planning to renovate the bear environment right away. However, a call from Wildlife and Fisheries about wayward cub or adolescent critter in need of a safe haven might warrant a change of plan. If that happens, she imagines the administration will adjust its exhibit priorities, grin and bear it.

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