ISSAQUENA COUNTY, Miss. — Here in Issaquena County, they occasionally are spotted along roads or rustling up bee hives, and residents say they want to see them flourish.
Proponents of the Yazoo Backwater Area Project have circulated this photo of Louisiana black bears taking to the trees to escape flooding. Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said most of the current flooding would be unaffected if the massive pumping station was in place.Though seldom seen by human eyes, more black bears are calling Mississippi home, biologists say.The state's black bear population has soared in the past decade, growing from 40 to 120, elevating the species to an icon of the Mississippi Delta.
“They’re coming back now,” said Issaquena landowner Hunter Fordice, who said he saw six bears one day recently. About a dozen live in the county.
Bottomland woodlands of Issaquena have witnessed the success of the bear populations. Two generations of cubs have been born on Fordice’s property.
Preservation of habitat and education of people have been critical in boosting the endangered species’ numbers.
“We see new cubs every single year,” said Brad Young, a bear biologist with the state Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks and one of the top researchers of Mississippi black bears. “As time goes on, we expect to see more bears.”
Fordice, son of the late Gov. Kirk Fordice, said his interest in bears began when the bears found him.
Cubs were born in 2007, and one, now 3, has two cubs of her own. They roam a patch of isolated wetlands secluded far from busy roads.
“It’s not really my doing – it’s the habitat,” Fordice said. “They just came into my neighborhood and made themselves at home.”
Fordice’s 600-plus acres were a soybean farm in the 1990s, but the land was entered into federal management programs with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service.
The programs provide financial assistance for lands returned to their natural state. The increase of forests in the Delta is part of what has been credited for the animal’s success.
“People were hoping and praying it would happen, and seeing the result here is really gratifying,” said Dave White, chief of NRCS. White on Friday visited Fordice-owned land that has benefitted from the NRCS Wetlands Reserve Program.
No bear was spotted, but White had a chance to tour prime bear habitat.
“These programs provide habitat not only for bears, but for other species, too,” White said.
NRCS conservationists enrolled 272,000 acres in the Wetlands Reserve Program in the past year compared to the 179,000 acres enrolled in 2009. Once enrolled, the land is intended to stay in its natural state in the future.
“It’s amazing to be be on a tract of land where we could see a black bear at any minute,” said Homer Wilkes, NRCS state conservationist.
Most of Mississippi’s black bears live in the Delta, and sightings also have been reported in north and coastal regions, Young said.
Although 20 have tracking collars, it’s not always easy to spot the elusive animals.
Mississippi once boasted a large bear population, the main reason why President Theodore Roosevelt visited Sharkey County in 1902 for a bear hunt that made history – and inadvertently led to the creation of the “Teddy” bear when the president declined a shot at a black bear that his hosts captured and tied to a tree.
But overhunting and the spread of farmland in the 20th Century caused bear populations to stagnate. Eventually, the state’s bear population lacked female bears.
Young said in the early 2000s, Mississippi’s bears were mostly males that swam the Mississippi River into the state from Louisiana and Arkansas.
But finally females started migrating to Mississippi. In 2005, the first cubs born in the state in more than 40 years appeared in Wilkinson County.
“They’ve responded to the lands we have available,” Young said.
Recent years have seen a revival of interest in preserving the species. Rolling Fork hosts the Great Delta Bear Affair each year, a festival intended to increase awareness of bear protection. In early October, the University of Mississippi named the animal its mascot.
Although Mississippi has seen progress, the species still has hurdles ahead. A bear was found killed in Issaquena County in 2001, and the shooter was fined $10,000 and placed on one-year probation.
With time, people will become more accepting of bears, Young said. “We’ve done a lot to educate people,” he said.
Bears, for the most part, are shy. But they are curious to new smells, especially food.
Hunter Fordice and his wife, Sally, learned how much bears love doughnuts, the occasional snack they leave for them. They have pictures of them eating doughnuts, and other pictures of different bears that have roamed their property.
Hunter Fordice flipped though a photo album Friday at the Onward Store, the famous pit-stop for President Roosevelt’s bear hunt over a century ago.
“This is my bear story,” Fordice said, showing photos he has snagged in the past four years. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
The Clarion-Ledger, 7A, Nov. 2, 2010
