Black bears reacquainting with West Texas

Dry conditions are forcing black bears go on the move, but they’re actually coming to Texas instead of leaving the drought-ridden state.

Louis Harveson, a natural resource management professor at Sul Ross State University, said the bears are fleeing dry conditions and fires in Mexico, searching for food and water. Bears are now a regular sight in Big Bend National Park and Black Gap Wildlife Management Area.

“They probably put their nose to the wind, smelled the river, the Rio Grande, and at least knew they could get water,” he said. “They used to be there, so it’s a very natural process, a very natural recolonization, that we’re seeing now.”

He said it won’t be odd to see black bears venture into towns and cities in the Trans-Pecos area looking for food and water.

The bears at one time inhabited much of the Trans-Pecos region, with many located in the Davis and Alpine mountains before they were mostly hunted out of the region, Harveson said.

Although the bears are generally passive and mostly eat vegetation, he said they can become aggressive if close enough and when the confrontation involves a cub.

But with fewer than 100 attacks since 1900, Harveson said people don’t have much to worry about.

“They avoid people like nobody’s business. The last thing they want to do is have an encounter with a human,” he said. “They can become accustomed to garbage and waste. They’re basically an oversized raccoon.”

Harveson said several people in Alpine saw bears looking through house windows in June.

Jonah Evans, a wildlife diversity biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said he has had seven reports of black bear sightings from May 31 to June 24, compared to just one sighting before that dating to the beginning of 2010.

It is illegal for residents to trap or kill bears, he said, so the department must document and investigate the interaction and the bear, trying to determine whether it is a threat and what its purpose for human interaction was.

Often, if a bear was just looking for food, Evans said it is possible to “dissuade” the bear from coming back, which is the first option when dealing with bears.

He said the last thing they want to do is shoot the bear or move it out of the area, but they will do that if necessary.

“If there’s a bear out there chasing a kid or something like that, or hurt a human, human safety always comes first,” Evans said. “The conditions are terrible right now and the wildlife is desperate. All sorts of wildlife are going to be acting in an unusual manner.”

Harveson said it is exciting to have the bears in the Trans-Pecos region because it represents an increased diversity in the wildlife in the area.

Whether the region can support the animals with food, water and a safe environment will determine whether they stay in Texas.

“They may all retreat realizing there’s nothing better on this side of the border than on the other side of the border,” Harveson said. “It’s just a matter of time before they come back and it looks like that’s what they’re trying to do.”

To report a black bear sighting, call the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department at 432-837-2051.