Loon on blue water
With the forest fire smoke of yesterday blowing in a different direction, today is a blue-sky day that is ideal for seeing wildlife on blue water, exploring bear dens, and experiencing bears with like-minded people.
In this year of scarce natural food, hungry bears are being seen in greater numbers than many can remember ever seeing before. The same is true on the other side of the border in northwestern Ontario. There, Ministry of Natural Resources officials are reporting 950 bear problems, which is nearly triple last year’s number. Around the town of Thunder Bay, police have reported 75 bear calls through August 22 compared with only 17 calls for that period last year and 5 the year before that.
Ministry of Natural Resources spokesperson Jolanta Kowalski attributes the many bear calls to the lack of wild food that has resulted from a late frost and a prolonged drought. The drought has also created one of the worst forest fire seasons on record for this area. Kowalski stated that the fires have displaced bears from their usual territories and may be further causing the unusually frequent human/bear interactions.
In our local community here in Minnesota, we have the same situation with few bear problems, and community residents are expressing appreciation to residents who are keeping bears out of trouble with supplemental food in this year of extremely scarce wild nuts and berries.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center