nuisance bears despite great natural foods

Knoxville News Sentinel, Nov. 27, 2010

Black bear nuisance behavior in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park got off to an early start this spring and has lasted longer than usual, biologists say.

Nine backcountry campsites in the park currently are closed because of bears aggressively searching for food, and in some cases, even tearing into tents.

Kim Delozier, chief wildlife biologist for the Smokies, said the late-season spate of nuisance bear behavior in the backcountry is especially surprising in light of the abundant natural food available to the bears from this fall's acorn crop.

"You'd think with plenty of food available, nuisance behavior wouldn't be a problem, but that's not been the case this fall," he said.

Article here.

2010 Bear Sightings & Incidents

Although the bear season isn't officially over, here are some preliminary results of the 2010 Bear Sighting & Incident data. For a more detailed recap of the 2010 bear season, go here.

BY THE NUMBERS: There have been 1,104 reports of bear sightings and incidents in 2010.The highest months for reports were June: 145, July: 401, August: 308 and September: 109. (see graph below).

• There were 38 reports of bears in homes or attempting to get into homes, 67 reports of bears in garages, on decks or in yards and 10 reports of bears breaking into vehicles.

• 883 of the reports involved human foods. 846 of those were bears getting into trash and 768 of the 846 were bears getting into trash in the city.

MAPS: A quick preliminary plot of sightings and incidents in 2010. The maps are a good representation of where sightings and incidents occurred, but not representational of the level, or severity, of sightings and incidents. (click photos for a larger view).