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216d19c1-ec5e-4d0a-96f5-8b068ea48f7c BLACK BEAR DIET Cattail Typha sp. May, June, July, August Spring, Summer Cattail is a common native plant that bears can rely on for food if preferred species aren’t producing. At different times from spring to fall bears will eat the entire plant. Black bears eat cattail leaf tips and roots in May and fleshy leaf bases in July and August(they bite the stalk off at the base, strip the tough outer parts away, and eat the soft starchy core).

377b5a96-130c-4b8d-a280-c3ff5f3f88db Bears: Monarchs of the Northern Wilderness Describes the daily life of the polar bear, brown bear, Asiatic black bear, and American black bear through all four season, clears up misconceptions about bears, and discusses hibernation and the raising of bear cubs Wayne Lynch September 1, 1993 242 Pages:

f5442e5f-6b61-4f03-82c6-06e9b0ce5352 BLACK BEAR DIET Lowbush Blueberry Vaccinium angustifolium July, August Summer A perennial native shrub that grows 6 inches to 2 feet tall, that yields a delicious blue berry loved by black bears. The fruit ripens starting in mid- to late July and continuing through August.

18516bce-4587-4820-a2bb-f7b85a1e981f < Back Slide 44 of 83 < > But cutting at unsustainable rates remains a problem. A survey in 1962 showed we had only 135,800 acres left, but we continued cutting without replanting and lost over half of those acres in the last 30 years.

September 22, 2021 Are bears in trouble in NE? Back-to-back high hunter harvests, limited natural foods, pose challenges for recovery The Arrowhead has long been the heart of Minnesota bear country. But continued high harvest levels, particularly of female bears, is putting pressure on the population. Posted Wednesday, September 22, 2021 5:39 pm Marshall Helmberger REGIONAL—Are black bears in trouble in far northeastern Minnesota? After back-to-back poor food years and an exceptionally high harvest of female bears in management zones in the border country, wildlife managers believe it will take time, possibly a long time, for the bear population to bounce back. It’s already taken longer than DNR wildlife managers had expected. The DNR slashed the number of bear permits it issued to hunters in northern Minnesota beginning in 2012 in an effort to rebuild a population that had fallen by 50 percent between 2000 and 2010. Twenty years ago, the DNR estimated the state’s bear population at 20,000-25,000, which prompted the agency to boost the bear harvest in order to reduce bear and human conflicts. The management decision worked, perhaps too well, notes Andy Tri, acting bear project leader for the Department of Natural Resources. “The bear population declined faster than anticipated, which is why we cut permits so dramatically in 2012 as an attempt to stabilize the population,” said Tri. For the most part, the state’s bear population appears to be stable or increasing slightly, notes Tri, although that’s mostly because the population is increasing in the state’s no-quota zone, located on the south and west edges of black bear range. The bear estimate in the state’s quota zone, which includes northeastern Minnesota, dipped slightly last year, as another poor food year pushed the bear harvest over 3,000. In northeastern Minnesota, DNR studies indicate that hunter take comprises about 80 percent of black bear mortality in any given year. Because the DNR’s population estimates reflect statewide data, they don’t provide much help in understanding what might be happening here in the North Country, where the potential for bear recovery is more limited. That’s true, in part, because the region’s limited food availability impacts bear reproduction. “The BWCA and areas of the Canadian Shield have the poorest foods in the entire state,” notes Tri. According to Tri, relatively limited natural food in the far north delays the onset of sexual maturity among female bears, or sows, which typically don’t breed in the region for the first time until age five or six, about a year later than bears in more southerly parts of the state. Many, if not most, sows never live that long. The average age of a hunter-harvested sow is just three years of age, according to the DNR, which means a substantial amount of future reproductive potential is lost each year. That fact reflects the somewhat limited tool kit available to wildlife managers when it comes to recovering the black bear populations. When the numbers of whitetail deer decline, for example, the DNR routinely restricts the harvest of female deer, or does, which are readily distinguished from adult male deer due to their lack of antlers. Maintaining more breeding does in the population allows game species, like deer, to recover more quickly from population declines, whether due to hunting pressure, predation, winter conditions, or disease. While there are subtle differences in the appearance of female and male black bears, DNR wildlife managers have determined that limiting the harvest of females isn’t feasible, since most hunters won’t be able to reliably recognize the differences in the field. Which is why the DNR has not limited hunter harvest of black bears to boars only. Whitetails also reach sexual maturity much sooner in Minnesota than do black bears, which gives whitetails much greater reproductive potential. Female deer in the state typically enter estrus in the November of their second year, or about 18 months after birth. In better habitat, they can even reach sexual maturity in the November of their first year. In addition, whitetails typically breed every year, while black bears in the state usually breed once every two years. The one factor that can help protect female bears is their greater reluctance to approach baits left out by hunters. That reluctance means that in an average or good food year, the harvest mix often runs 60-65 percent males, according to DNR data. That protective factor disappears, however, in poor food years. Without alternative foods on the landscape, hunger drives female bears to hunters’ baits and the result is hunters taking more females. “My quick summary of the Tower area shows 50.6 percent females in the harvest as of Sept. 14,” said Tower DNR wildlife manager Tom Rusch. “This is clearly very high. A bear harvest with such a high adult female percentage could have long term impacts on the bear population.” Tri agrees. “When harvest is high during a bad food year, it can have significant implications on the proportion of the population that is made up of reproductive females,” he said. “We won’t know what the full effects of the season will be until we get the final age data back in February, but it’s been a hard couple years for bears in the Northeast.” Rusch predicts a decline in the region’s bear population this year and he expects the DNR will need to reduce its bear permit numbers in the future in order to help the population recover. Tri said it’s still too early to know for sure, although he acknowledges that the high harvests in 2020 and 2021 are “exceptional.” The impact of lower permit numbers isn’t always predictable. DNR wildlife officials had hoped that slashing the number of permits issued to bear hunters, beginning in 2012, would allow the bear population to recover, but the population in the quota zone hasn’t shown much growth despite several years of historically low bear permits. That’s true, in part, because the decline in the number of permits has coincided with a dramatic increase in hunter success in recent years, at least in the part of the state subject to harvest quotas, which includes the North Country. As recently as the early 2010s, only about one-in-four bear hunters was successful. In recent years, however, 45-50 percent of hunters have bagged a bear, a remarkable change that has blunted the impact of permit reductions. Last year, 57 percent of hunters in the quota zone bagged a bear, which pushed the total harvest up to 3,203 bears, the highest since 2006. Tri estimates a final harvest this year of 2,900 bears, which (except for last year) would be the highest since 2007.

May 3, 2023 Late spring prompts more bear complaints Posted Wednesday, May 3, 2023 7:14 pm Marshall Helmberger REGIONAL— It’s been a long winter, and not just for the human residents of the North Country. Black bears are emerging from their long winter naps hungrier than usual, and with the late snow melt they’re finding little in the way of natural foods to recover after several months without eating. And that’s got at least a few bears turning to other sources of potential food, like bird feeders and other animal feed put out by local livestock growers, causing damage at residences mostly in the Tower area. “We had a big bear on the property Thursday night,” said Becky Gawboy, who raises a variety of livestock just south of Tower. “It destroyed the inside of the pig yard, ripped off the door, and sent the pigs running. They were gone for days.” The big bruin also tipped over the Gawboy’s bird feeder, and pulled down a peanut feeder that was hung eight feet up in the air. “He just trashed everything everywhere he went,” said Gawboy. The bear was a repeat offender, showing up the next day. But Gawboy said all her animals and various sources of food had been moved to the barn by then, relatively safe behind locked doors. The bear was also back on Monday night this week, and pulled down the one remaining peanut feeder, which was nearly empty. Jessica Holmes, DNR Tower Area wildlife manager, said the problem appears to be a localized one this spring. “There’s a local bear that’s creating a lot of havoc, including here at the DNR office,” said Holmes. She said bears often turn to easy sources of food in the spring, especially before some of the spring greens start emerging. “But we’re hearing no widespread complaints. It appears to be a pretty isolated situation.” The problem bear hasn’t been content to wreak havoc at just one location. Just down the road from Gawboys, what appears to be the same bear has left Lisa Anderson and her family feeling almost trapped inside their house, fearful of going outside without a gun. Anderson said she first saw the big bear while coming home from Tower on Saturday evening. She turned into her driveway to see it standing in the middle of the drive, looking at her. She honked the horn, but rather than running away as she expected, the bear scratched at the dirt, squatted, and defecated, producing what she described as an enormous pile of partially digested black oil sunflower seeds. Rather than try to make a run for the house, she drove away for a while, hoping the bear would leave. Instead, it went on a rampage, ripping down fences that house her sizable flocks of chickens, ducks, geese, and guinea hens. It’s also caused damage to fences that contain her horses, and left them unusually skittish. Anderson said the bear has returned repeatedly since then. She’s tried using firecrackers and pistol shots to scare the bear away, mostly without effect. While the bear’s initial foray onto her property seemed to focus on accessing animal feed, she was petrified when it ventured onto her deck the other night, concerned that it would try to gain entry to the house. “There is no food there, so the only reason to come on the deck would be to break in,” she said. Anderson said she contacted the Department of Natural Resources and spoke to a conservation officer who told her that the agency no longer relocates Anderson said that isn’t the answer she was looking for. “I want it gone, I don’t want it dead,” she said. In the meantime, she said she doesn’t go outside without a gun right now just in case the bear shows up. While most residents haven’t seen the kind of damage experienced by Anderson or Gawboy, bears have been showing up at residences all around the area. Bears, of various sizes, have been frequent visitors around homes in Tower and elsewhere, scrounging for anything edible, but most damage, if any, has been minor. Anderson said the conservation officer she spoke with told her that the situation would improve in the next few weeks as things start to green up and bears turn their attention elsewhere for food. While the bear will eventually move on, neither Anderson nor Gawboy is interested in waiting around if the bear is going to continue to cause damage. Gawboy said if the bear shows up during daylight, she’ll solve the problem— permanently.

6a04b59a-c574-414d-8371-a324c0d83aa1 Black Bear: North America's Bear (Kids Book) Three species of bear inhabit North America: the grizzly, the polar bear, and the black bear. But the American black bear is truly North America's bear, found only in North America. Black bears range from Canada to Mexico, from New England to California. There may be as many as 750,000 black bears roaming the forests and mountains of the continent. With its large population, and with more people moving into black bear territory, it's important that we understand this magnificent animal. Stephen R. Swinburne takes us to where black bears live. He joins biologists in search of bears in the Pennsylvania woods, where a mother bear is examined and her cubs tagged. He visits a "school teacher" for orphaned cubs who teaches them how to survive in the wild. Along the way, he offers his personal observations together with fascinating facts about black bears and their world. (Did you know that in the autumn, black bears consume as much as twenty thousand calories a day? That's equivalent to forty-two hamburgers!) With stunning full-color and archival photographs, this lively book shows how North America's bear behaves and survives. Stephen R. Swinburne December 1, 2009 32 Pages:

43eafb72-e756-4a7d-9961-7fa9c9451f46 < Back Slide 62 of 83 < > For example, scattered white pines are important to black bears.