Castle Creek Outfitters
Minnesota Black Bear and Whitetail Guide Service.
WAUSAU,
Wis. - Wisconsin has at least twice as many black bears as state wildlife
experts had estimated based on earlier counts, according to preliminary
findings of a study released Tuesday.
The new research, which could
lead to more hunting of bears, suggests about 26,000 bears roam the state, said
Timothy Van Deelen, a wildlife ecology professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison who coordinated the study.
"We were surprised and we
have spent a lot of time stepping through all the assumptions of the model
trying to find where we've gone wrong," he said. "It is not what we
expected."
A second year of study that
should be completed this fall will be used to help verify the numbers, he said.
The state Department of Natural
Resources' model for counting bears had the population at 13,000, he said.
Keith Warnke, a DNR bear ecologist,
said the early results of $100,000 study, which his agency helped finance,
showed the state has a healthy bear population.
"We have long had a sense
that there were more bears than we were able to model with our detection,"
he said. "We always interpreted the information conservatively to protect
the resource and err on the side of caution."
He said the earliest any more
hunting of bears could occur would be during the 2009 season.
Hunters killed about 3,000 bears
during a monthlong season last fall, and the DNR has 4,660 permits available to
hunt bear this year, Warnke said.
Last year, applications for bear
permits suggested there's at least 82,000 bear hunters in state, Warnke said.
Van Deelen said with 26,000
bears, Wisconsin's density of the animals would be comparable to Minnesota and
Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
His study is based on 3,500 bear
baits marked with tetracycline, an antibiotic that leaves a mark in a bear's
bone, set across the state's bear range in 2006.
Bear hunters in 2006 and 2007
were asked to provide a section of a rib bone from bears they shot for
analysis. From those samples, researchers used a formula to calculate the
estimated bear population, Van Deelen said.
Results of testing of rib samples
from the 2007 season should be completed by this fall, he said.
Van Deelen said the counting
method was much more sophisticated and more labor intensive than the DNR's
model.
The DNR considers bear abundant
in the northern third of the state and common or occasional in the central and
southwest regions of the state.
Warnke said the dramatically
higher estimate is evidence the population is expanding, meaning more bears
likely will be spotted outside the traditional ranges.
"Despite bears' general
shyness toward humans, people in the central and southwest areas of the state
likely can expect to see more evidence of bears as they disperse, looking for
new territories," he said.
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On the Net:
Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us