The state’s black bear population has staged an extraordinary comeback in the last half century. Once relegated to small isolated pockets at the ends of the state, and down to fewer than 1,000 individuals, bears are now pushing farther into the Piedmont, filling in habitat they haven’t lived in for decades. And their population has expanded to an estimated 20,000.
WUNC’s Jay Price talked with Joe Falta, a biologist with the N.C. State Wildlife Resources Commission, who has studied black bears for years, about the comeback, how to deal with a bear you encounter and even the effects of scented candles on these charismatic megafauna.
The interview was lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
So you are the district five wildlife biologist for the Wildlife Resources Commission. What is district five?
"So district five is northern Piedmont. My district extends from Rockingham County across the northern tier to Granville, down through Durham, Chatham Lee, and then over to Randolph County. So 11 counties in total."
And at one point, black bears were distributed essentially everywhere in the state?
"Historically, black bears extended all across North America. Well, I shouldn't say all across North America, across the United States, continental United States, up into Alaska, northern Canada, and then down into about a third of the way down into Mexico. The only places they didn't inhabit were the desert regions. And then by the late 1900s, early 2000s the range actually had decreased by about 62%. Now we're seeing the range start to expand again, and North Carolina is a good example of where that's happening."
What was it that led to their range to shrink initially, and what’s allowed them to bounce back?
"So initially, the decrease in the population was primarily because of poorly, or unregulated hunting, expansion of human development, persecution, all those types of things. And then the expansion has basically come back because of our interest in bears for one thing, and allowing some protections through limited harvest. North Carolina is a good example of this.
"Back in 1972, we established 28 bear sanctuaries covering about 800,000 acres, and what that was supposed to do was to protect a nucleus of breeding females from which those offspring could disperse out into the rest of the state and basically expand their range. And it worked well. So the situation that North Carolina did, as far as the sanctuaries go, is a little bit unique, but for the most part, the protections on bears, the establishment of management zones or management areas, I guess a lot of folks can understand that, that allows them to have those protections."
My understanding is the black bear population in eastern North Carolina is extraordinary.
"We just finished a field portion of the study with N.C. State University. So in the next, I'm assuming, several months or so, we'll get an estimate of what the bear population actually is out there (in the East), but we assume it's about 12,000 bears. But what North Carolina is unique for is some of the densest, or in fact, the densest population of bears in their range. So it's not the most amount, it's just the densest amount."
And that's the densest in black bear population in the world, that Eastern N.C. population of the state.
"That's correct. So we think we got about 12,000 or so in the east, we've got about 8,000 or so in the West. We don't have an estimate for the Piedmont so, you know, we're looking at little over 20,000 we just don't know yet how much over 20,000 or so."
And what's going on with this range expansion? It sounds like you've got a number of factors. It sounds like there's momentum from what had already been going on in the east and the west, but something else is going on in the north, right? (Every N.C. county on the border with Virginia now has bears.)
"So, part of my dissertation was actually looking at the velocity of range expansion based on our populations, the eastern and the western population spreading into the Piedmont, and that spread was about two-and-a-half to five miles per year coming in. But now we've got some influx from Virginia coming down into the northern tier counties of North Carolina.
"Back several years ago, Virginia had a program where they were trying to increase their population on their southern tier counties. Well, they kind of overshot the goal a little bit. Their plan that they had put in place was very, very successful. So we’re getting some of that influx down from Virginia down into those northern tier counties. So Caswell, Rockingham, Person, Orange, we're starting to see those bears coming down in those, well, almost to the bottom of their southern county lines."
Do you think bears will establish populations in all 100 counties eventually?
"No. The reason for that is, we've got that urban crescent, you know, the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem … all the way down to Charlotte. That area is so populated with people, there isn't really a good place for bears to basically set up home. And we really don't want bears established there. You know, there's not a good place for bears to reside where they're not going to get in trouble someplace. So that crescent, we get transient bears every year coming through there. That's the juvenile males, primarily, that are being kicked out of their natal home range and dispersing, looking for their own home range, that come through that crescent. We just don't want them to get established there."
It seems inevitable we’ll be seeing a rising number of those transient bears in the more urban areas if the population creeps closer and gets denser.
"Absolutely, yeah. We're seeing that particularly like Durham and Raleigh. We're getting those bears that are starting to set up shop right there in those northern parts of those counties, and they are transitioning down through those urban parts, perhaps trying to get to, say, the southern part of their range, and unfortunately, some of those end up getting hit by cars. They get in somebody's backyard and cause a fuss there, you know, get into trash cans and bird feeders and all that kind of stuff."
But it sounds like they could establish populations at least at the edges, the margins, of the counties with those large urban areas, right?
"So Wake County, yeah, you potentially could have some like in the northern part of that county. Durham County, we are already seeing bears reproducing in the northern part of Durham County, but it's just a very, very small sliver. So yeah, we potentially could have some on the outskirts of many of these counties. Mecklenburg County, that's pretty dense. I'm not sure if we would get bears setting up in Mecklenburg County, but yeah, a lot of those other ones, on the fringe potentially, yeah."
So there's something about population, human population density, that makes bears avoid suburban areas?
"Yes and no. They are very adaptable, at least to suburban landscapes. Before I came to North Carolina, I was up in northeastern Pennsylvania, and I was trapping bears up there. And there's a development called Hemlock Farms up in the Pocono Mountains. And I can't remember the statistics of how many homes and people and I think it was like 20 miles off paved roads, 10,000 people or something like that, 5,000 homes… There were 20 resident bears there. So they were adapted to that type of suburban life. But when you start getting into these cities. Yeah, there's no way that they're going to establish there."
And it seems obvious that we’re likely to see ever more human-bear interactions. You have more humans in an area and more bears, of course they're going to meet more often.
"Yeah, Asheville and Gatlinburg, Tennessee, both of those are really good examples where you do have more of an urban setting. I mean, certainly not like Charlotte or something like that, but it's quite urban. And, yeah, those bears are coming right into town."
And what's going on with the Deep River in Chatham County? Looking at your map of the bears’ range expansion, that seems to be an outlier, where they have come deep into Chatham along that river.
"Bears really take advantage of the riparian corridors. That's their travel corridors, particularly to get through some areas that would be a little bit less hospitable to bears. So we watch these bears come up through these corridors, and we're starting to see this in Chatham and Lee County. They’re coming up the major river drainages into those counties. How long or how far up they'll go, it's to be seen. But we see that a lot … we see them take advantage of that cover."
The Wildlife Commission has an awareness program about what to do if you encounter a black bear, BearWise. Can you talk about that some?
"So basically, we fall back to the six BearWise basics … First of all, you know, don't approach that bear; Scare it away. Do anything you can do to make noise, throw things at it, squirt it with a water hose, whatever it takes to chase that bear away. Make sure that that bear feels uncomfortable anytime it comes around people. Focus on what might be drawing that bear to that area, whether it is a bird feeder, we tell people to take those bird feeders down, particularly when bears are most active.
"If they've got some sort of a food source out there, as far as trash, or recycling that sort of thing, secure those. If you've got a barbecue grill or a smoker, make sure that's cleaned up and stored away so they're not being attracted by those pet foods. If you've got to feed a pet outside, I tell folks, give that food to your pet. Give them 20 minutes to eat it. If they don't finish it, you just take that bowl up so it's not left out there for something else to go after, whether it's bears or another species.
"And then the last thing is, if the bear is in your yard, make sure your neighbors know about it too, and make sure that they're abiding by those BearWise principles as well. And through all of that, usually that bear is not going to stay in the area. And even some things that people don't even think about: scented candles. You might have a scented candle on your table on the back porch, or whatever. These bears, they can smell these types of scents for over 20 miles."
Wait. Scented candles can attract bears?
It's an easy way to draw them in. Scented candles … You know, if it smells like fruit or smells like cinnamon or something else that smells good to them. You know, you've seen, probably, apple pie, scented candles and stuff like that. It's a great way to attract them.
But the bottom line is, these creatures are not usually dangerous, unless you do something wrong or there's some sort of accidental encounter. They don’t normally predate people.
"Yeah. I mean, there have been a couple of cases where that has been the case, but black bears and brown bears — grizzly bears — they evolved completely differently."
