BLACK BEAR, 2: The adaptable black bear is making a slow 
comeback in Texas ... details on Passport to Texas.

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

We are beginning to rethink what we know about black 
bears. While they need a fair amount of real estate in 
which to live, they are an adaptable species in many ways. 

They're not the wilderness animal we once thought they were 
back in the fifties and sixties when [it was thought] they 
"needed" large expanses of wilderness ... roadless country. :08

Nathan Garner is regional wildlife director for region 
three in east Texas and contributing author of the East 
Texas Black Bear Conservation and Management Plan.

Bears are very adaptable. We're seeing in the eastern united 
stated, bears denning under highways and culverts; bears living 
in barns on farms. Bears living among the suburbs ... So, bears 
are adapting to the changing landscape in this country where 
we're having more and more land fragmentation and more 
development in the countryside. :20

Garner says that where bears exist, they will eventually 
come into contact with their human neighbors. 

I think the biggest problem we're going to have in areas where 
people and bears are living together more closely now, is 
garbage management, because bears, they think about food 
most of the time. And, once they develop a taste for human 
garbage, that can be a potential problem, because bears can 
then get used to that. That's what we don't want to happen. :17

What you need to know about black bears ... tomorrow.

Until then visit passporttotexas.org where you'll find a 
link to the East Texas Black Bear Conservation and 
Management Plan.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti.


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