The Missouri Department of Conservation biologists has warned outdoor re-creationists to take precautions to avoid problems with bears in southern Missouri and researchers note that the flourishing population of black bears in the state indicates healthier forests after almost two centuries of "intensive logging and exploitation."
A joint study by the University of Missouri, Mississippi State University and Missouri Department of Conservation biologists shows that the black bear population is slowly increasing in the forests of southern Missouri after they were hunted down and moved from the forests of Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma in the 1920s due to habitat loss.
While Lori Eggert, associate professor of biological sciences in MU's College of Arts and Science, warns outdoor re-creationists to take precautions to avoid attracting bears, she assures that the bears are harmless to humans but may come looking for food. She also notes that the return of the black bears to Missouri is a result of the reintroduction program in Arkansas during the 50s and 60s. Now thousands of bears amble through Arkansas and some have also made their way into the forests of Southern Missouri. According to Eggert, it is also an indication of healthier forests after nearly two centuries of severe deforestation.
Eggert and her team used genetic fingerprints of bears to trace their origin. They found the origin of the bears in Missouri was from Arkansas. And in Arkansas the majority of black bears appear to be descendants of those originally reintroduced from Minnesota and Manitoba, Canada.
"The larger the gene pool of bears in the region, the healthier the population will be as it recovers," Eggert said in a press statement. "If they do indeed exist, these remnant populations of black bears may serve as valuable reservoirs of genetic diversity."
The growth of the bear population may attract several recreational activities including limited bear hunting in October and November approved by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in the future.
The study is published in the Journal of Mammalogy.
