Bear Biology Nerd-Out with Bear Biologist Sara Lyda

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(01:31):
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(02:01):
the people that have dedicated their lives to the subject
at hand. The subject today is bears, black bears in Oklahoma,
and Sarah Lita is a biologist and she's dedicated the
last twenty years of her life two black bears in Oklahoma,
and she is she she was the first person to

(02:24):
actually do research on bears in the early two thousands.
So Sarah is a great guest, extremely knowledgeable, and she
was hard to get on the podcast. It was easier
to get Ted Nugent and Steve Rinella. So you're gonna
enjoy Sarah Lita. One of my friends and a a great,
a great conservationist. Sarah Lita, the Western Bear Foundation is

(02:50):
a nonprofit hunting conservation organization standing up for the rights
of bears. Yep, you heard it. Airs conservationists and hunters
like us, like the Western Bear Foundation. We love bears.
We want them to be on the landscape. We want
them to thrive, we want them to be their numbers

(03:12):
to be in balance with a habitat so they can
be strong and healthy. There's some people that don't understand that.
They don't understand the North American blah blah wildlife conservation
and using hunting as a tool. Our buddies at the
Western Bear Foundation, they understand that, and they're standing up
for the rights of sportsmen and for bears out west.
Their nonprofit organization. You can join their organization and you'll

(03:36):
get some great perks, your voice will be in the
fight for bears. Check them out. So we just came
out with a really cool hat. It's a first Light
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our famous now famous bear grease pat on the front

(04:00):
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guys that ordered those hats are on back order. We
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But check out that hat. And we just came out
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want to check that out at bear hyphen hunting dot com.
Check out all our merch and also Bear Hunting Magazine. Man,
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We dedicate our lives. Our knuckles literally bleed on the
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(04:44):
how to cook bear, what to do with bear hides,
and just the general spirit of goodwill and awesomeness for
black bear hunting across North America. Did you know that
black bears are the most numerous large carnivore in the world.

(05:05):
That's correct, You heard me right. Black bears are thriving.
Check out Bear Hunting Magazine. You can get a subscription
twenty five dollars a year. You spend that much money
at McDonald's. I mean, if you go to McDonald's, you'll
spend that much money at McDonald's. Get a subscription to
Bear Hunting Magazine bear ivan Hunting dot com. Sarah Lida

(05:33):
you you don't realize that, but you're a highly valued
guest on the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. We've been We've
been trying to get her on here for a long time.
Story it's easier to get like Ted Nugent on this podcast.
And it's true. I'm hard to pin down. We're in

(05:53):
uh we're in southeast Oklahoma, overlooking an incredible view of
the washed all mountains. Uh for real beautiful and uh no, Sarah, thanks,
thank you for meeting with us. We try to do
this a couple other times and ran into some roadblocks.
But uh, I was just telling I was just telling
her that these biology podcasts always do good. People are

(06:17):
always interested. And I think you were worried that we
might be covering some of the same stuff that we
talked about with all these other biologists. But I don't care.
What if we talk about the same things all over again.
You may not have heard it. When I have any
kind of awkward silence and any conversation with anybody in
my life, if I'm at the grocery store, if you're
my best friend, if you're my wife. We talk about

(06:39):
the right. It's like, uh, you know how much about
delayed implantation and how cool bears are. That's so that's
my go to conversation. But now, Sarah, you are tell
me who you work for? Okay, So I work for
Oklahoma State University. I work through the Oklahoma Cooperative Fish

(07:02):
and Wildlife Research Unit, and all of the research that
we do is for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation
in an effort to aid their management schemes. Now, where
is where? This is terrible? I did this to you
in I misstated the college that you work for very cautious.

(07:29):
It's so hard with state lines, Like I could tell
you every college in Arkansas drive ten minutes into Oklahoma,
and I'm like, on a different planet. You work for Oklahoma,
Oklahoma State University, State University, Cowboys. Where are they at city?
It's in still Water. The main campus is in Stillwater.
How big is How big is Oklahoma State University? I

(07:52):
believe that they have twenty two four thousand students or so.
It's a good side school. I didn't really still Water
was that big. It's it's growing, it's definitely growing. Quite frankly,
it's a wonderful town. I wish still Water though, was
about where Poto is, so that we could actually get
to the mountains more easily. But yeah, but it's it's

(08:15):
a great little town to live in, and it's growing,
growing really fast, and and UM it's the lane great
university in the state. So UM campuses is beautiful, very
much focused on outdoor beauty and agricultural sciences and and
that kind of thing. So that's who you that's who
you work for, and you are UM. You're working with

(08:40):
research students, graduate students on projects that are always related
to bear are not always related to bear right and
for the past well since I have been strictly bear related. UM.
I am employed through our grants for the bear research
and my job although it's adjusted over those years because

(09:02):
when I first started back in I was the only
one on the project and was actually doing the field
work and and reports and everything else. UM. Now as
we've moved forward as often, we started actually bringing on
graduate students and more technicians and that kind of thing. So,
so now you're overseeing these projects. I oversee all of

(09:26):
the field aspects of the bear research in Oklahoma, and
so we have. I should also mention, so we have
Dr Sux Fairbanks, who is a professor, a tenured professor
at os U, and she is the major advisor for
all of the graduate students that we have on the
Bear project, and she's technically our principal investigator, and so
she handles all thing research related in terms of writing

(09:50):
the papers and managing the students from an academic standpoint,
and then I oversee all of the research efforts from
a field standpoint. Um, maybe you know this answer. Does
your funding for your projects come from Pittman Robertson Fund
federal federal? Yes, yes, yeah, so we are and where

(10:13):
you know, all of the reports that we send in
they go to the odw BC, but then they also
get moved on to UM to the federals folks, so
that they can see what we're doing with that money. Um.
Can you just like a lot of people would be
familiar with Pittman Robertson, but like, can you describe that?
I mean, I could do it, but I would want
to hear you do it. I mean, it's it's a

(10:34):
it's a it's an excise tax, right, So it's a
the money comes from all the sales of anything sportsman related,
hunting and fishing related, and um, and so it's it's
our hunters, it's our conservationists that are out there that
are actually paying for the work that we're doing. So
there's that's the federal side of the match money. And

(10:57):
then of course the ODWO, BC and the Universe City
also have their side pitching in. But if if we
didn't have that federal money to fund this, we wouldn't
we wouldn't have That is like a big part and
it's become much more common knowledge inside the hunting community

(11:17):
in the last probably even five years. But just this
idea that the Pittman robertson money, which is an excise tax,
which means it's an additional it's an additional tax on guns,
ammunition and hunting related equipment. So sportsmen choose to you know,
by choose, we mean we just hadn't voted it out
and made it different. So we've made a choice that

(11:39):
this money is going to be given to the federal government.
In the federal government ear tags it for these specific
things all related to conservation and wildlife and one of
those things. So I've been doing some I've been doing
some study on it for something I'm writing. But you know,
there's these very many things that it could go to,
but one of them is research. And that's why I

(12:00):
wanted to see if this was funded by Pittman Robertson money.
I was actually last night, just last night, in my truck.
I had three people with me, none of them from
the United States. They were friends of my daughters from college. UM,
and UH have no context for North American hunting zero,

(12:23):
and so I took them coon hunting. It's coon season
in Arkansas and uh, that was my go to thing
too early on in the conversation because they asked because
they know I like to talk about this stuff, and
they're like, tell us why honeys is important is essentially
what they asked, almost word for word. Within five minutes,

(12:45):
I was talking about the Pittman Robertson. I was like, Hey,
we're funding this. This is a user paid system, and
I think it's important for people to know. I mean,
you know, it's not just like we like the coon hunt.
I mean, we do, but it's bigger than that. It's
there's more to it than that, you know. But we're
we're consumptive users, but we're also giving back. I mean,
that's that's the whole point, is that you know, people

(13:08):
hunt for various reasons, but it's if not of the time,
it's because we love the wildlife species that we're hunting
and that we're we're out viewing and watching, and so
we want to make sure that their managed properly so
we can continue that heritage. Yeah. I mean I grew
up on a hunting plantation in South Carolina that my

(13:29):
dad was the manager of. Um, he was a forester
and a wildlife biologist, and so I mean I grew
up in the woods, on the water and in the
skin and shed. You know, I would I had finished
my riding lessons, I get my homework done and wait
for the lights to roll in so I could go
sit at the skin and shed and see what came
in that night, you know. I mean, UM, it's it's
a way of life, and and we're extremely fortunate to

(13:53):
be able to participate in that and to know that
we're giving back. Yeah. So I want to get in
to your current research. I want to hear some maybe
some cool stories of just I mean, you've had a
lot of hands on experience with bears, but I want
to go back to uh, your you were one of

(14:13):
the first people doing research on these Oklahoma bears. I
am the first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So just to give
a little bit of a context. And people have heard
me talk about, you know, the reintroduction in Arkansas quite
a bit, but you know, maybe some people wouldn't be familiar.
So I mean, essentially bears were here in in Oklahoma.
This is native range for them. They would have been

(14:34):
here almost statewide. I guess, I guess parts of the
Panhandle they wouldn't have been. But yeah, but well they
might have been out in the very western part of
the Panhandle because of that New Mexico and Colorado connection. Um,
but probably you know, safe from my thirty five west
they probably couldn't have really survived very well. So it

(14:56):
would have been mostly the forested areas of the state,
which would be like the east during third of Oklahoma,
probably about the eastern third. Yeah, And so just in
the last let's say fifty sixty years, bears have been
come back into Oklahoma, and so this population built and
then you showed up and we're the first one to
do actual research on these bears, right, So, um, I

(15:20):
know that Joe hemp Pill and Jeff Ford had been
working for years before we finally got the project started
that I got to work on UM. But in the
in the nineties and late nineties, they they started working
to try to get approval for a project because they
started having more and more sightings of bears in the
southeastern part of the state. And UM, as luck would

(15:43):
have it, UM, a friend of mine from University of Tennessee,
was out here getting his PhD. And they had a
student drop out of the project in early two thousand one,
and they were scrambling to find somebody who had bear experience.
And I had worked on a couple of UT projects
as an undergraduate at Auburn, and he was calling people

(16:04):
he knew that knew how to get out and trap,
and so I was fortunately one of those people he called.
In long story short, I drove to Oklahoma side Unseen
and started in the spring of two thousand one down
in the Wachitas doing that work. UM. So I moved
out I think it was in April, and I bought

(16:25):
all my supplies in still Water and came down here
and then had to start learning the study area and
figure out where we wanted to do it. That was
for my master's UM. So, with the help of the
od w C folks down here, Jeff was Jeff Ford
was definitely integral and that. Um but just yeah, yeah, yeah,

(16:47):
it's it's we've got quite a family here, fair people.
UM So, yeah, so I had to move down here,
I had to learn the area, we had to figure
out where we wanted our trap lines to go. Um
and all of that kind of based in what we
consider to be the core area of this watch tool population,
which is in the National Forest in flok County. UM So,

(17:10):
don't tell him that, Sarah. What's funny is in Oklahoma,
there's a we're talking about the topography and kind of
the layout of the state, like the Washtal Mountains infiltrate
into Oklahoma and just really four or five counties, I mean,
like mountainous stuff anyway, like probably the foothills the Washtalls

(17:33):
probably go maybe into more counties than that, but it's
just a pretty relatively small geographic area that would be
considered mountainous. And most people wouldn't think of mountains when
I think of Oklahoma. They certainly wouldn't think of what
we're looking at here. I mean this looks like the
Appalachians or something. I can tell you I did not.
I mean, I grew up in the low country of
South Carolina, and so I always thought Oklahoma was prairie.

(17:55):
You know, I'm with wolves, you know, like open prayer
and so um to know that you could come here
and find this kind of habitat. And the other neat
thing about these mountains is that they are east to
west running, and so that we we assume that that
also kind of aided in the expansion from Arkansas these

(18:16):
bears into Oklahoma. Obviously they can climb up and down mountains,
they don't have to have it running. But when you've
got ridges that run from east to west and the
drainages are also doing that, it makes for an easy,
easy travel cord or basically, yea, um, what were you? Uh? So,
what was your what were your objectives? Kobe? I just

(18:36):
almost nerded out on the washtalls right then I pulled
back just a little bit. You may notice that other
people may not. The washing tolls were some of these
mountains were once ten thousand feet and this is maybe
stuff you had heard. Some of these big mountains were
ten thousand feet. Washtalls were formed the East West running ridges.

(18:58):
Was when South America bumped into North America. It buckled
here and the Gulf of Mexico used to come up
to the Washingtal Mountains like you would have been. It
would have been a ten thousand foot highest peaks coastal
range of mountains. In the erosion of the Washtaal Mountains,

(19:19):
this is the way I understand it. Tell me if
you know something different. Those mountains eroded over a bazillion years.
And basically that erosion filled in what is now western Mississippi,
Louisiana in East Texas, and so they call Louisiana the
Washingtal Basin. So essentially, the the the erosion of the

(19:41):
Washtaal Mountains, which would have been this massive coastal range,
the erosion filled in the Gulf of Mexico. And so
when you look on there's certain and I'm I'm not
really a geologist, but there there was a time period when, yeah,
the Gulf of Mexico up to like right here, we

(20:01):
would be standing on mountains looking over the Gulf of Mexico.
So are you a ruined stone believer? I don't know
a ton about it. I don't. I don't either. All
I know is that they believe that the Vikings. Actually
we're in the Headner area at at one point back
when the ocean is supposed to be that close, and
they have what they believe we're Viking ruined stones. Um

(20:24):
at that little park there. Now, I have not been
there since grad school, so I can't I can't give
you all the complete details of it. But I've never
even stopped there. But when you said it, I mean
I remember, I mean Headner is known for the run stones.
We got stop there? What are we thinking? Yeah? No,

(20:46):
that fascinates me. But the east west running ridges also
make for unique habitat for bear because it's these different
different angles that sunlight's hit in the forest. You know,
the southern slopes are arid, the northern slopes or messic
I guess is you know, more water, more thick vegetation.

(21:06):
It's it's really an interesting um I tell people all
the time. So our our ridges might not be more
than three thousand feet, but this is some of the
most rugged country you could ever wish for if you
really get back in there, because what you're dealing with
really steep areas in most cases too. So it's not
just that you have these rolling hills that happen to

(21:28):
get up tall enough to be mountains. Um, it's they're
kind of steep peaks that you're dealing with. In particular,
you can really see it if you say, drive along
that Talamina drive and that's another good area to get
to see. Um, the differences in the habitats that you're
talking about two, And how how short and scrubby the
trees are when you get up on those really high

(21:50):
high peaks like that, because you're basically almost dealing with
a desert type situation because there's not a lot of
um top soil for those for those trees really take
root in. Um. You know, Oklahoma itself has is incredibly
diverse from the ecoregion standpoint. Um. But this this area

(22:10):
down here, UM, well it's I mean, it's a second
home to me. This is just I've never never lived
in mountains before I came here, but this is this
is a good place to be and it's been been
great for the bears obviously. So back to where I
was going before I got sidetracked by the wash dolls. Um,

(22:31):
what were you trying to do with your initial research?
So what was the objective so initially my first research
was was sort of basic in the grand scheme of
research these days, but the main goal was to come
up with a population estimate for the core area of
the population UM, and then also to move forward with

(22:55):
trying to see we we did caller back then they
were just VHF callers on female else to get a
feel for home ranges and habitat use. And then also
the important thing about those callers is it allowed us
to follow two dens and do the reproductive UM and
for get the reproductive information that we needed for the
population to see if it's in fact growing that kind

(23:18):
of thing. So did you going into it? Did you
have or did anybody have any idea how many bears
there were? I mean, there was no research, so nobody
but I could would did anybody guess right? I'm not
sure if anybody did. I would imagine Joe and Bill
and Jeff Ford probably had some ideas because it's how
long they had worked in this region and UM, and

(23:41):
they were the ones that would be dealing with any
conflict issues that we might have. UM. I don't recall
now I've slept you didn't you. I've slept a few
few days since then, But I don't recall coming into
it if anybody said to me, you know, we're kind
of thinking, this is the amount of listen biologists there there.

(24:03):
They don't like to guess, do they know if you
were if you were, if you were just a normal
person and not a biologist, and you had an objective
to try to understand how many bears there were. I mean,
me and Colby would be like taking bets, you know,
like I bet there's a thousand, I bet there's five thousands.
But Jasko biologists and they're just like unbiased. The research

(24:24):
will amongst ourselves. We might have our own theories, but
we definitely try to be very cautious about throwing that
out in the general public. That's there, sure, UM. But
you know, the other thing about it is I was
working in UM a pretty restricted area, and so from
my project we actually only estimated that they're about eighty

(24:46):
five bears in the area that I was working in. Now,
you weren't doing DNA hair snares, back then, were you.
It was I helped set that up right after I
finished my master's as student came in and did the
they have that tech knowledgy when you started, because now
that's like the norm. We Yeah, we collected hair from
all of our We collected hair samples off of all

(25:07):
of our captures and that kind of thing, the same
way we do now. Um. And so I think it
was definitely kind of becoming a more common practice. And
so how did y'all do it? How did you guys
back then like determined density? Um? So for our population estimate,
we use the Lincoln Peterson model and so it's from
a capture recapture study. So it was break it down

(25:30):
for me in a real simple way because I really
don't know what it so. Okay, so we had trap lines.
I have ran four different trap lines in different areas
than that they would have. Um, we used Aldrich snares. No,
this is so this is before the bucket snares. So
these are they are a foothold snare with the same
cable that the bucket snares use. Um. But there we

(25:54):
build them into the ground, so you're making that bear
step into a spot where you've got your pants set
and catch them that way, still attached to a tree,
still with springs built in to to protect them from
injuries and things like that. So, UM, what you're doing
when you're doing those is we're marking, marking and recapture.
That's what the Lincoln Peterson does. So you we capture individuals,

(26:17):
we mark them UM with ear tags. We actually use
several different methods. We do lip tattoos and ear tags
because oftentimes they'll rip those ear tags out UM and
then some bears would get callers of course, and so
you're keeping track of all of those individuals but also
recaptures and all of that information goes into After two

(26:40):
years of doing this work, you put it into this
UM into this equation that also takes into consideration, you know,
is it a closed system? Are you still having bears
moving in or out? Things like that. Lincoln Peterson is
probably like the most basic form of coming up with
a with a repulation estimate. These days, there are a

(27:02):
million different great ways to look into it. Where UM
like our our most recent students, um Erica Perez that
you got to meet UM, she actually did some modeling
for a current estimate down here where she actually incorporated
UM not only her capture recapture information, but also hunting

(27:24):
season harvests, also UM survival and things like that from
our callers that we put out so you can just
pile tons of great information in to then get a
better feel for what you're really dealing with. Down back then, um,
you were there was some correlation to how many times
you caught the same bear that if you cut the

(27:50):
same bear four different times and you're not catching a
whole bunch of new bunch of new bears, or if
you never caught the same bear twice, then that would
mean things that may be that there are more bears exactly.
So if if you're recapturing a bunch but not catching
a whole lot of new ones, um, then then that
would probably go into that and give you a feel

(28:12):
for well, maybe there aren't as many bears here, you know.
So we've kind of experienced that in certain portions up
in our ozark study area. It's a smaller population that's
just becoming established. And so once we trapped for a
few years, man, we were just seeing a lot of
our a lot of recaptures and or photos around to that.

(28:34):
So almost well twenty years ago, well the ozarks, for
the ozark population that we started that research in two
thousand eleven m but for here um and in fact
we believe we've actually started looking at the Ozark population
at an earlier place in their recolonization than we did
down here in the early two thousands. Um, you know,

(28:54):
I described a recollonizing population, and we were looking at
the expansion front right there in the core area down
here in two thousand, two thousand two, and they were
already here. They were already here. But when we started
in two thousand eleven up in that Ozark region, Um,
we're catching that even earlier. So you're starting to see

(29:16):
an increase, like you're, well, we would expect to start
seeing an increase from there, and and certainly we're getting
right now the up in the Ozark region. And I
know we're kind of bouncing back and forth here so
doing the typical biologist thing, but in that the full
scale thesis, that's right. So in the Ozarks, Um, right now,

(29:41):
that population is basically totally reliant on the influx from
the Arkansas side of things. Um, they're not these bears
here aren't going north and crossing my forty in the
Arkansas River, not that we've shown yet so far. So far,
the Ozark and the Watch sub populations are distinct populations,

(30:02):
and there's no flow back and forth. Now can bears
cross interstates and rivers, Absolutely, they don't really like to
in many ways. And so it seems as though in
both populations they're expanding westward as opposed to north and south. UM.
Now down here obviously because of there, there's so many
things that are so different about the Ozarks and the

(30:24):
watchitas here. Um, the Watchitas are wonderful, and that there's
so much public land, right. I mean, you've got all
of this National Forest that's what half a million acres
or something, and that also comes from from Arkansas over
and so the expanse of good, good habitat and not
only the National Forest, but then you've got also all

(30:45):
the um timber companies and things like that. So we've
got large blocks of forest down here. When you're looking
at the Ozarks and Oklahoma, UM, it's highly fragmented. So
we've got some really good habitat up there. There are yes.
So there's there's the Cooks and Wildlife Management Area that's

(31:06):
close to fifteen acres phenomenal bear habitat, but it's surrounded
by a bunch of privately owned well so in Sequoya,
Cherokee and eight are counties. Um, there are there definitely
some cattle grazing and whatnot, but that's those counties. There's
a lot more forested area and it's just broken up

(31:28):
because of all the private ownership UM, and so the
good habitat is fragmented more Now around that Cooks and
Wildlife Management area, there are some good blocks of property
owners that have large properties and with them butting up
to that wildlife management area. Man, that's that's provided a
really good good habitat for bears, and that's one of

(31:49):
the good areas for them. But when you pull out
and look at a larger scale, it's all fragmented and
it's so it's it's a challenge. UM. You know, we've
we've found and some of our research that the female
bears don't don't like that highly fragmented stuff and they
don't like to be they don't like to be close

(32:09):
to roads and highways, and they don't like to be
UM close to human disturbance. So when you're looking at UM,
a species that is wholly reliant on females to make
it stable and grow, UM, it's that that we're just
dealing with different not choosing that fragmented if they have

(32:31):
the choice they're going to want to be in those
large blocks, those large contiguous blocks, And so that's just
one of the management challenges that we have in the Ozarks,
and it's very different from what we're dealing with down
here in the watch it asks do you not notice
that as much with male bears, they just kind of
roam a little bit more freely. Yeah, they just cover
all kinds of territors, studying them, watching where they din.

(32:53):
That's you probably have more data on the females we've
got so so we are definitely um, you've got way
more coller data location data on females than we do
on males in the state. Now, we were initially collering
males as well up in the northeast, and actually we
still are um in the in the those Ark region.

(33:14):
In fact, we're doing some really cool stuff now where
we're actually callering yearling bears to track their dispersal from
the maternal home range. I've still got questions about your
original thesis, Sarah. It's just too much. Yeah. Gave her
an open door to it, she took it and ran.
So the original research well, let me let me let

(33:34):
me there's two questions I don't ask you, um, how
many bears did you find out that there were? So
in two summers, we actually captured fifty one individuals on
my original trap lines in two thousands, twenty years ago.
I haven't gotten any older, but you know it was.

(33:55):
Um so, so we captured fifty one individuals are population
sestimate for the study area? And that's that's a big
thing to to key in on, is the fact that
we're not saying the entire waits have only eighty five bears.
At that point, we were saying this study area that
encompassed the home ranges of the females that I was

(34:16):
callering and the trap lines that I worked on, UM
was eighty five or so bears. Now would that have
been like like one like you don't have to give
the specifics of was like what that would have been
about the size of one of these counties over here?
It seems like, if I'm remembering correctly, it seems like
the study area was defined is about fourteen hundred square

(34:40):
kilometers or something like that. Um, can you put that
in American? Well, so check out science made simple metric conversions.
So that's probably what like square miles wise, i'd be
what maybe six or seven hundred square miles. Yeah, I

(35:03):
think something probably like a like a like a county.
I mean, like I'm just thinking of average, and it wasn't.
I mean, as far as La floor County was concerned,
it was only a small portion of floor County. Bigger,
it was bigger than it's it's smaller than than the
floor county. My my study area was smaller than the
floor county for sure, because it was just in a

(35:24):
small portion of the national forest in the floor County. Okay,
we're going, so what's the most you hold it, yould
it your question. Wait, I'll hold it. Here's my question.
Hold what was it like catching your first bear? So
you you you had never you didn't know this country.

(35:47):
I presume you've never seen in Oklahoma bear before, and
you go out and you set these traps and you
catch a bear. I mean that had to have been
like an impacting thing to be like, holy smokes. This
is what I can tell you is that there is
no feeling that's better in this world than to have

(36:10):
the opportunity to to start a project like that from
the ground up, so to be the one responsible to
actually get in there do the footwork. Figure out where
you think the best places for your lines are going
to be. Set those lines, train people that come out
to work with you, set those lines, and then and

(36:32):
then begin capturing like we did. Um it's phenomenal and
it's still and then and not to keep jumping back
and forth. But so I did that work in two
thousand one and two thousand two, and then when we
got the new funding for the current projects started in
two thousand and fourteen, I was then able to take

(36:52):
Morgan Fander, a master's student, into those areas and we
started using those lines again and to see how things
have changed, and talk about full circle. I mean it
just I can get emotional about it and get weepy
anytime thinking about how how incredible it was too to

(37:12):
have been a part of that original kind of pioneer
and then to be able to share it with other
students and see how much farther they can take it
now than I ever could have back then. You know,
I mean, the technology and that we have now and
the intelligence of these students and the the things that
they bring to the project. It's just been it's been fun.

(37:34):
In a twenty year time period, probably a lot of
great stuff has happened. I mean in terms of of
ability to interpret data and research and stuff. I mean
pretty big leaps and different things. But you still didn't
answer my question, Sarah, Um, when you walked up on
the first bear, was that exciting? Remember the first one? Well,

(37:59):
so I will tell you. I don't remember now specifically
the first guy, but I do. Do you want me
to tell you about our girl that I think Jeff
actually mentioned in his podcast? So she was only that.
I think she was the third bear that we ever
caught on my project in two thousand one. And we

(38:23):
name our bears because I don't like tracking numbers. So
Bertha Bertha is our Um. No, I don't think she
was especially big. She was only a three about three
years old then. Always associate big with Bertha. Now Bertha
is big in terms of attitude and personality. So Bertha definitely,

(38:43):
and now she as an adult bear, she is a
good size bear. But um, so we caught Bertha. She
was I think only the third bear that I ever
caught down here starting that project. And Bertha showed back
up on our project when we started trapping down here.
And we still have Bertha Collard, She's still alive. She's

(39:04):
not had cubs the last two years, which makes this
very sad, but she's still an incredible condition. She think
she's years old. Wow, so you caught her that first
year and she's still alive and never when we started back,
of course, I had all the old numbers and data

(39:25):
that I passed. Actually, I don't even think I had
passed it off to the grad student then to Morgan,
because it just didn't even occur to me that we'd
start seeing these bears. And luckily the tattoos lasted long
enough that we ended up I think with six or
eight different bears that I marked in my study that
showed up again and our studies here. That's pretty neat.

(39:48):
That's very neat. But Bertha is if I was going
to have a favorite bear, she is definitely the favorite.
She stays that you guys know of in Oklahoma. I
think she's at the best we can tell she around
in Arkansas. The that's around the age of the most
the oldest documented bear. I've heard Randy Cross up in

(40:09):
Maine talk about thirty plus year old bears. I've seen
some of his stuff that he's written. Um anyway, but yeah,
that's that's old that's pretty cool. It's tricky. You've got
to have you know, what we found out the the
aging with the tooth of cementum manually is really good. Um.
But we've also found having marked her back in two

(40:31):
thousand one and as a younger bear you can it's
more trustworthy that processes. So we knew she was likely
three or four at that point. UM. So then when
they actually aged the second time around, it didn't peg
or as old as she really was. That's interesting. But

(40:55):
I don't know, I don't know. If we have she's
probably running out of teeth. The age, well, it's it's
you know, they wear them down. I mean they spend
half of their lives eating acorns and walnuts and things
like that, so it's going to wear them down. And um,
and the one that we use is such a tiny
little premolar. Could you use other? Um, that's just the

(41:17):
easiest one to get to that. Well, it's the it's
the one that they're not using. Its tiny. It's it's
a tiny one right behind that canine. And they're actually
I guess they're they technically have four because you can
technically take one from the bottom. The top is where
we usually pull from because that's usually the easiest to

(41:38):
pop loose. Um, it's not even it's not even a
quarter of an inch root at all once we get
it out of the out of the mouth. And so
that's the reason we use those, because it's not going
to inhibit their one. But that makes presumed that was
it's virtually vestigial. Basically, you know, it's virtually something that

(42:00):
they're not using anymore. It's still that's like appendix basically,
you know it's still there. Um, maybe it served a
purpose or still could help a little bit, but it's
so tiny that it's pretty much income you could annually
any tooth. I guess that's a good question, but I
believe so. I mean, they're they're all growing from the
time that they lose them as babies and get their

(42:20):
adult teeth, and they're gonna you know, Randy Cross told
me one time that, um, you're talking about tooth aging animals.
He said, he basically said, you can't put much stock
in toothwaar, just visible toothwar I wonder if you had
any correlation with this, like because he said we might.

(42:41):
He said, they might be working with a five year
old bear that has like rotten teeth and has broken
canines and busted up, and then they might have a
fifteen year old bear that has a fairly pristine set
of teeth, because you know, the generalization would be all
that bears old, it's teeth are wore down and broken.

(43:01):
I mean, probably most of the time that's true. But
he said there were notable exceptions that made him not
give much credit to just toothwaar. And I'm not talking
about annual cementum annually. I'm just talking about visible toothwaar.
And he thought it was genetics. He thought it was
just like humans, just like some people are prone to
more tooth decay than others. I just thought that was interesting.

(43:23):
I could definitely see that. I mean, I guess that's
with most wildlife species. It's like we've got this great
um formula for aging deer, but it depends on the
region that you're in and how many rocks they're chewing. Yeah,
what so, so it's the same idea with bears. We
always i mean, we're biologists, So we've got a data
sheet that's just chock full of stuff that we write

(43:44):
down and we make notes about what their toothwar looks like.
And if there's um, anything odd to report, UM. And
so I think I think it gives us some something
to go by, just if we're accustomed to seeing bears
in the wachtas and what their usually look like. It
has some bit of a spectrum for us that you know,
we could say, well, most likely it's within this range

(44:06):
or something. UM. But absolutely, I mean there's genetics, there's
what that particular bear eats a lot of did something
different than a bear thirty miles away, right, And like
I said, I'm sorry, Like I said, I mean, they're
when they're sitting there spending so much time crunching on
acorns and walnuts and things like that, you just just

(44:28):
never know. Do you remember how long it took you
to catch your first bear? Oh from when you started?
I do not remember specifically, but it seems as though
within the first week she's a good trapper. Because we
only um, I mean, we only run each line for
a couple of weeks apiece, and so at that time,

(44:50):
we would we would work for two weeks running those lines,
and then we'd take a couple of days off to
just do telemetry or whatever, and then we'd set the
next line. UM. Sounds like a fun research project to
start up. It really wasn't in such a beautiful place,
you know. Um, of course, I think it was that
very first line that also gave all of us a huge,

(45:14):
huge case of poison ivy because the absolutely perfect trap
tree that I found was covered, but I wasn't willing
to give it up, so we ripped out a bunch
of poison ivy and consequently all ended up in Fort
Smith at the doctor get shot that shot before because
we were so miserable. But we caught bears there. In fact,

(45:37):
the first bear we caught there we named Ivy because
what's the funniest name you've given in bear? Oh m,
it's interesting. That's a good question. I don't know. I
don't know if we have Oh I do know one. Um,
so I've heard you talk with somebody about how to
pronounce the watch how so many people bounce it? And

(46:00):
back then we used to laugh because people would say,
what cheetahs, So we called one of our bears wat cheetah. Oh,
that's just so. And then of course it's filled exactly
like you. That's funny. That's good, that's good. I like that. No,
I've got a bear name and story that involved Sarah,

(46:23):
and it ties right in. It's a beautiful segue into
den research. So the one time I went with you
guys on a then research project or a then a
then visit, I think it was twenty fifteen. I think
it was. I think it's five years ago. May it
may have been. It would have been twenty sixteen, I think,

(46:44):
because that's when Erica and Morgan were with us. So
four years ago. And uh so we were we were
going into a sal that you've done so many I
don't know if you if you even remember, but we
were going into a sala that didn't have cubs. We
didn't think, we didn't think. She thought she was too

(47:05):
young to have cubs. Yeah, And so we walk all
the way back in there and the whole time it's
like and the good the cool thing about it was
if it had cubs, I probably wouldn't have even been
on a trip. Part of the reason I got to
go was they were like, Hey, this isn't that important.
You're not that important, so you can come with us
on this one, and so you have to pay your dues. Yeah,

(47:28):
and so and I was. I was grateful just to
be there and so we went up and uh, I
mean it's a pretty cool process to like watch watch
you guys work in that scenario because you know pretty
much where the bears at and probably in this case
that I think Morgan knew exactly where it was at.
They had already gone in and located the din in

(47:50):
this rock cavity, and so you know, you have to
kind of sneak up, kind of be quiet, and but
these bears are unusually today eight, you know, just naturally
in the den, Like that's what's not people either think
they're dead asleep and you could just walk up to
them and poke them with a stick and they wouldn't
even wake up. Or when you tell them that, they're

(48:13):
like cognizant and like they're like looking at you out
of the den with their head up like you know,
you're like, well, why aren't they running off? Anyway, you
you sneak up to this den and kind of move
in quiet, and then I think Morgan darted the bear.
I think with an air gun. It may be in
a jabstick. We usually use a jabstick, but I think

(48:38):
I stayed back and let you guys go up there,
but usually use a jebstick. Yeah, she used the jet stick.
I remember putting it together now. So she has this
like spear with a syringe on the end of it. Poke,
poke this bear, and the bear just lets you do that,
and um, some but some of them. Yeah. But what
was cool about this one is that there were cubs.

(48:59):
So once we get up there, Morgan's like, there's cops
in there, and there wasn't supposed to be cubs. And
this was like a I guess a bear going into
its third was it like a two and a half
year old, but well, I would have been in the
would have been in the spring three already, yep, So
that's pretty young for a bear. So that meant that

(49:20):
she bread it to and then had her first litterate three.
And we've had that happen in the Ozarks in particular.
We've had that happened before. Um, but it's it's not
incredibly common. They usually say between three and five is
when they they first Yeah, I want to I want
to come back to that very point, but I gotta

(49:40):
finish the story. While Morgan and I were yeah, y'all
stayed back just a little bit, and Erica and Morgan up,
I think so that we only have a few people
that go in on the sedation team and rite it
like the peak moment of intensity, like we see the den.
The den's like right there. Morgan goes, there's a camera.

(50:05):
There was a like nineteen seventies style full frame thirty
five millimeter cannon camera laid on a rock as if
rumpel Stiltskin in nineteen seventy nine had laid that camera
there and it had been untouched for it was old.

(50:30):
This camera's just laying there. And she says, there's a
camera and we're in the middle of nowhere. Do you
remember that camera? Jeff Ford has it and and so
we're we gotta do the job. So we're like take note, like, okay,
there's a camera. We gotta come back and see what's
up with this. And when we go in and do

(50:51):
all the den work, and then I think after we
got her sedated, somebody walked over there and you know,
Morgan saw it, so it's you know, it was it
was it was hers, you know, and uh it we
It was crazy cool. And we named that cub cannon
because it's a cannon camera. And one of the cubs
was color phase. They were tiny and a color phase.

(51:15):
I remember one of them looked almost silver, and that's
the one we named Cannon. But anyway, it was just
I've never had that happening in in all my outdoor
adventures to find something quite that unique. And as I
followed up with Morgan later, and she wasn't able to
like the film was like unsalvageable, but she tried to

(51:38):
get it open. And but anyway, it's kind of neat.
But yeah, you never know what you're gonna find out
in these woods. You know, it's it's I'm always hauling
treasures in, but usually it's rocks and feathers and things
like that. But yeah, well I'd like to know the
story of the person that lost that. Um Okay, the
the reading age of these bears being two and three, Like,

(52:03):
what does it indicate when there's young females getting bread?
So what we suspect? Like I said, it's usually that
we've seen it the most up in our Ozark region,
although we have seen it down here in the Wachitas
a little bit. Um, But in that particular case, you
would expect that there are fewer females and so those

(52:24):
younger ones can actually become bread at an earlier age.
So that the males are actually covering younger females UM.
And and there's a lot that goes into it as
well in terms of interpreting. You know, a lot of
times those younger females have a harder time actually raising
off that first litter because there's got to be some

(52:44):
learning curve, right, I mean, um, if they're still only
only just now turning three years old and I've only
spent you know, six months or nine months on their own,
than them having to also teach cubs is a challenge
for them. Um. Some do a great job and some
some don't. UM. But but yeah, it's been an interesting

(53:06):
thing to see now down here and the Wachitas. I
believe that um most of the time, their first breeding
is around three and this is a more stable population
though correct there there there are more bears here there.
It's it's still growing, but it's still kind of a
more stable and they're more bears UM and more adult

(53:26):
females to choose from. Now, not that the male bears
are at all choosy. They're they're just covering as many
as they possibly can. UM. But there's just that that competition.
What's the what's the coolest like home range bear story
that you can recall. So you've done you've been around

(53:47):
some of these research projects with like bears. And I'm
sure you've heard about this bear that's come down from
like Wisconsin is now in eastern Arkansas. Have you heard
about that? Um? Briefly, I don't know a whole lot
about it, but that's all I know is what I
just told you. But they've been tracking this bear down
through the Midwest and he's ended up in like the

(54:09):
Lower White River drainage in Arkansas from Minnesota, not Minnesota, Wisconsin,
I think. But well, UM, So, so one thing that
I should mention about callers that UM is really important
to bring up about because our researches, we learned so
much more now these days, being able to have access

(54:29):
to the technology we have. So when I was in
graduate school, UM I referred to only having a VHF caller,
which means it only has a radio signal and you
have to get out there and manually track that caller
and triangulate. You have to have really good mapping skills
and you know, so you're out there having to do
the work to get any locations. So you can imagine

(54:52):
because of the time that it takes to actually get
enough readings on a certain bear and get a location
on it that you're your hands are tied to where
you probably got maybe I got three locations per bear
per week something like that when I had fifteen big
callers out or so um, and that's tracking six days
a week, you know. So Um, there's a lot of

(55:13):
effort that goes into getting just a handful of locations
and data. Now we're using satellite callers, and so we
can have those callers, I mean they can be programmed
to take locations every thirty minutes if we wanted to,
but most of ours take them. Um. Now on our
yearling bears, we're taking them every few hours. On our

(55:34):
adult bears were taking them every six or seven hours. Um.
So that you're getting locations at different times a day.
Now we aren't getting those locations every single time. It
makes an attempt, but you can see that if I'm
supposed to be getting three locations per day and only
get two, that's still there were exactly I mean, so

(55:57):
what we thought was happening back then based on VH
of work, Now we're really getting to see a lot
of movement that we wouldn't have gotten before. Um. So,
so we've had we've had one female in our ozark
region that primarily was in an area let's say eight

(56:18):
miles by eight miles that was her home range for
the most part, and that here working around in that area.
That's where she lived. But every fall for about a
week or two, she would make this jaunt into Arkansas,
which was probably where she was going. Was probably as

(56:40):
a crow flies thirty miles away or so, and she'd
go over there, and then she'd come back and then
back in Oklahoma again, and and so we never were able.
Actually we should pull that date up and maybe we
could get over there now that we've been we've been
working with Yeah, of course, it's it's been so long now. UM.

(57:02):
I mean you could say, well, maybe there's a feeder
over there that she's going to a wildlife feeder or something.
But she was surrounded by plenty of wildlife feeders in
her home range. Um, she was in an area that
had plenty of good oaks, you know, so, but there
was something over there that she would take this job
and then come back. Um. Do you think it could

(57:23):
have been like where she was raised or where she
came from it very well, a maternal home range or
something maybe you know, certainly that's close enough that that
you know, she could have potentially come from that area,
Um for sure. But why she wouldn't have set up
shop more in Arkansas than you know, because they don't

(57:46):
usually they don't typically disperse that far from the maternal
home ranges, the females don't. Would you say? It's pretty
uh standard? Like, well, I don't want to get ahead
of you on the other interesting stories, but like, give
me a generalization on bear home range here, Like, okay,
so they're they're pretty large here. Um, what we're probably

(58:09):
looking at is around and around thirty eight square miles
or so for females and a hundred and seventy or
so square miles for males. Were more bigger. I mean
we actually down here, I believe that there's an estimate
that was even close to like two fifty square miles.
Is that so? Laura Conley in Missouri told me something similar,

(58:32):
and that surprised me because and maybe twenty maybe ten
even ten years ago, some of the research that was
being at least in general terms, what I was hearing
in Arkansas, the Bear range wasn't that big, And I
don't know if that. You know, sometimes one person says
something as a generalization and then you hear that and

(58:55):
then you start repeating it and before you know it
it's science, when really it never is. So, but that's
really a big home range. There's a lot of variation.
I mean, that is definitely something to keep in mind,
is that um between individual bears and their area within
the population. Um. You know, their home range size is

(59:17):
wholly tied to the resources that they need to survive
on an annual basis. So that's well, it's just it
can be in a very small area. It could be
three square miles if they could find all of their
annual food food stuff within that three square miles, if
they can find their water, they've got good denning all

(59:38):
of that, it can be very small, um, but they
need to to be able to I mean, these are
very large animals in general that live off of nuts
and berries basically. So you can imagine how many, yeah,
how much they have to forage to get enough blackberries
for a day or or acorns for a day, that
kind of thing. So it's it's really a function of

(01:00:02):
of the habitat in how much area they have to
cover in general. Now, males, it also has to do
with them traveling to breed. The females aren't going to
take off and now their their summer home ranges are
larger than the fall. Usually the fall usually kind of
um gets a little more compact um. So the female

(01:00:24):
home ranges in the summer are bigger than the fall.
Males are obviously way bigger in the summer than they
are in the fall, because summer is the breeding season
and so they really put the pedal to the metal
and are out. That's a massive, massive area, you know.
I wonder if sometimes I've thought about, like, uh, kind
of like an anomaly like what you just described, like

(01:00:44):
the south that just had this home range and she
just went over and did something crazy and then would
come back. I wonder if adaptation an evolution have some
way rewarded kind of just something that seems erratic, but

(01:01:05):
there was a biological advantage too, Like if you think
about it like this, like maybe something catastrophic would happen
in a certain area and the bear that wasn't there
when it happened survived. Do you understand what I'm saying?
So like, because you see these like we kind of
want to take wildlife and make them into this like

(01:01:26):
cardboard cut I do. Anyway, I know you're a biologist,
so you don't, but I do. And so it's like
a bear has he's in this home range, he's gonna
stay here. But then you hear this stuff and and
I'm you know, Jeff Ford told us a story about
this bear that went like seventy miles. Yeah, we called
him Rambler after that, and you know, and so my,

(01:01:47):
you know, you think, well, a home range is a
is a reflection of what that bear needs to survive
and nothing more like that's what you That's what I think,
or you know, that's what I wanted to like. So
but Ambler, he bypassed a ton of great habitat, probably
full of food source to go over there. For whatever

(01:02:07):
this bear did. Your bear did the same thing. So like,
I just wonder if there's like something rewarded inside of random,
you know, eccentricity inside of a bear or any any
any animal species. Well, and to us, it's it appears
to be erratic, but there's there's a reason that they're
making those moves. And it's just like, um, you know,

(01:02:30):
we've We've worked to try to get it why they
choose different den types, Right, Why when you've got say, crevices,
and you've got hollow trees, and you've got good brush piles,
why would they ever just go den in a ground nest?
And why why would they do that? It seems ridiculous
to us, But somehow it's working for them, and they've

(01:02:52):
made those choices, and so we just have to do
the best we can at looking at all the variables
to try to flesh out why they're making these moves
and these decisions that they're making. Um, and maybe it
is random, you know, maybe maybe we try to put
too much into it. But I like to think, I
mean sort of supporting your your theory. I mean, I
like to think that there's there's a reason for their movements.

(01:03:14):
We just haven't seen it yet. We just haven't quite
flushed it out. Yeah, it's such a mystery that that
is the one thing that it's so cool about these animals,
especially when we have this kind of research and data
like we have now, like these GPS college as you
get the unveiled, just a little bit of the mystery
to see what they're doing. Right, do you have any
other cool home range stories. I kind of interrupted you. Um, well,

(01:03:35):
I was gonna mention Rambler and his movements. Um. Actually, uh,
Courtney daughter, which are PhD student down on the Watchitas
just sent me a map the other day of our
girl birth though that I was just talking about. And
so she is within our original core area here and
um and has been has been really consistent over the years.

(01:03:57):
I mean we literally were catching her like at the
same app sites that we did from back in the
early two thousand's and um, but she took a jaunt
south that looks appears to be new this summer compared
to what she's done before. And again I will say
that she has not had cubs the last couple of years,
and so maybe her movements might be a little bit

(01:04:19):
different now that she's older and potentially not having cubs. Um,
we're still holding out hope for this next year. Um,
but she just took a jaunt south and I'm trying
to think it's a good ten or twelve miles from
kind of her normal area. UM. We speculated that maybe

(01:04:40):
she was making her way down to the to the
little cafe to get a burger and fries and a
little shake or something since she didn't have to deal
with kids. But yeah, um, den's is there? Is there?
Where do they primarily den um? So, oh gosh, they

(01:05:03):
use so many different types of Den's already kind of
spatted off a few of them. It's it seems to
be a little bit different between the Watchtows and the Ozarks,
but that is only because the availability of crevice type
or cave type dens and those arcs they're they're more
available up in the Ozarks because of the geology in
that area. So we get a lot you know, we

(01:05:25):
definitely get more of them in those types of den's
there um. But primarily we see a lot of ground excavations.
So in the side of a hill, they literally will
dig out a spot big enough for them to curl
up in UM. Down here, we get a lot more
in like the hollow bases of trees UM sometimes in
elevated what I would call elevated tree ins where they

(01:05:46):
actually have to go into a hole up twenty or
thirty feet up and down. We've got some trees that
big around here that have those kind do and and
and it's kind of crazy because they actually don't have
to be as big as you would envision them. I
mean basically like mama beary. Then they're sitting here and
that's about as much space as she's probably got. You
can't hardly get to those bears though, for we have not.

(01:06:07):
All we have done is actually we've done go pro
We track them and then if we can, if we
can climb the tree, if we can get up there,
we try to shoot a go pro in there and
see what see what we can go yeah that just
to say okay, does she have cubs or not? If
we can't climb it. Um. We also leave game cameras
up there so that we can see try to see

(01:06:28):
who comes out, just so we know if if she
ends up having cubs or not. Usually those dens like
that are going to be a female that's going to
have cubs, not one that has yearlings. Space issue right, um,
So lots of ground excavations. We've got the crevice dens
up in the ozarks um what I call just kind
of rocked in, so just spaces under the big boulders

(01:06:51):
right now that would be here. It was just like
a rock pile. You wouldn't have looked at it and thought,
oh that's a bear den it was just of just
a space probably twelve fourteen inches tall and you know,
kind of obscure shaped, but maybe two or three ft wide,
I mean, just enough for somebody to just kind of

(01:07:13):
get half their body down in there. I was always
really interesting. Still am the more the more bare dens
that I've seen, the more interested I am in them.
But people don't people most people don't understand what they
look like. Probably if you're in the woods in the
wintertime very much at all in a place that has bears,

(01:07:34):
you've probably walked past bear dens and never never had
a clue. It's it's unbelievable the spaces that they choose. Um. Actually,
one of our coolest crevice dens that we have recorded
so far was actually down here in the Wachitas, and
she was so far I mean, it was a tight squeeze.

(01:07:54):
You had to be comfortable with splunking to get into her.
And we actually ended up because of the goal and
where she was. We tried to dart her because she
was so far back in there, but the angle the
darts kept kind of glancing off of rock and whatnot.
We ended up putting two jabsticks together, so like a
sixteen foot long jabstick and feeding it. Like talk about teamwork. Um,

(01:08:16):
it was phenomenal. We we made it work and we're
able to sedate her and um and then get down
in there. And those are what what There's not many
caves like that here. Was it a cave? Would you
call it a cave? I mean I would technically know
it was. It was technically a cavers bluff it was

(01:08:41):
in so it's in the side of a hill and um,
and it's almost like a fissure, you know where I
did like maybe maybe that's what was going on, is
that you know, to get down into it, um, basically
like you're squeezing yourself like you just have to slide
down in and then it kind of opens up and
moves around. Um. But she was down and like I said,

(01:09:02):
it was our jab pole was sixteen feet one all
was said and done, and we were hanging down into it.
The our graduate student, will um Children's was actually kind
of hanging laying down into the entrance using that jabstick.
So UM, I mean she was down in there good ways.
And we've had some of we've had some really neat
ones up in the Ozarks that are similar where you

(01:09:24):
you're like having to crawl into a tunnel to be
able to even do the sedation and that kind of thing. Um.
But typically it seems as though they're going to have
smaller dens when they have cubs, um, and then when
they're back in there with yearlings than they usually pick
a little bit larger spaces. But that's I mean, that's

(01:09:45):
not written in stone, nothing out here is. But that's
usually Have you ever had any real close calls with
bears like one like getting ugly with you? Um, some
of the girls get pretty saucy with us in the
in the den season, they take exception you know what
you're saying about how calm they are, and that's i'd
say percent of the time. They they look at you,

(01:10:10):
they know you're there. They might huff a little bit,
and then mostly they turn away from you and say,
I'll just pretend like you're not there and maybe you'll
go away. You know, they really just they don't want
to mess with you. Yes, they can come out, they
could get you if they wanted to, but mostly they
just want you to go away. Um. But we definitely
have certain ones that have been I mean they swat
and bite at the jab stick and We primarily use

(01:10:33):
the the aluminum jab hoole, and that can go anywhere
from UM. I think they're like three foot sections or
so two and a half or three foot sections, so
we can get it up to about eight or nine
ft if we need to. UM. We prefer that method to.
We do have fancy dart projectors and things like that
when we need to, but a lot of our areas

(01:10:53):
it's so thick um getting into them that you have
to get just about as close with the dart project
as you do with your jabstick anyway, So we have
so much more control over the placement of our you know,
of our syringe and things like that with with the
jabstick than we do I mean the there as I

(01:11:14):
mentioned with the dart projector. I mean, you just have
all kinds of weird things that happened depending on angles
and things like that, and so even even an excellent
marksman UM can still still mess up with that. So
you've never been attacked by be I have never been
attacked by a bear. I've had a bear that wanted
to eat me. You're asking about memorable bears, and I

(01:11:38):
think everybody that's worked with them has has a story
probably about certain ones, and this is one that was down.
It was all my second trap line um of the
summer in grad school. And he was a probably a
three year old male. And those guys tend to think

(01:11:58):
that they're pretty tough stuff and they have something. They're
the ones that think they have something to prove, you know,
the big older males like our boys skip that's over
five hundred pounds. He just sits there and looks actually like,
I know, I'm the king of the forest. You know,
it's no big deal. You don't scare me. But when
you have those young males, they're the ones that kind
of get pretty feisty sometimes. But he was, Thank goodness,

(01:12:22):
we had a good a good catch on him because
he was lunging back and forth between my technician and myself,
like coming after us, and he was really range. He
had long legs and so he had a really good
good reach on him. And I was doing the job,
and I mean he'd rush right at me and slap
at the job stick and then he'd turn around and
he'd do the same thing with my technician who had

(01:12:44):
a stick, trying to keep his attention and that kind
of thing. And so of I mentioned that we had
fifty one bears individual bears captured those two years, and
of those fifty one, he's the one that I would
not wanted to bumped into in a berry patch. And
I feel like I'd be like, you know, they all
have a certain amount of fight in them when they're

(01:13:05):
they're backed into a corner, certainly, but his behavior was
totally different. And then we've got a female up in
the Ozark region that um her name actually her name
is Christy, but she is sorry, she is no angel.

(01:13:27):
And and the cool thing about her was that we
um the last time that we worked it in with her, UM,
she had a male and a female cub, which is typical,
and UM, the little female cub was just as saucy
as Christie is. Usually, you know, they're just they just
want to cart curl up and go to sleep or whatever.

(01:13:47):
But that little girl was. It was a little bit
later in March, and so she was older and a
little bit bigger, and she already had the like pat
the ground with her front feet and huff at you,
and I mean she had all of the big bear
stuff down and the little male just laid and slept
in your arms. But she was not she was. She
was biting us friendly trying to measure you know, we

(01:14:09):
did we did, uh? I did a I did a
story and I interviewed Randy Cross specifically about an idea
that he had. And I don't know if you're familiar
with Randy Cross, but he's a he's a the bear
biology or was he's retired now, but reputable bear biologists
the main he So we did a story on and this,

(01:14:31):
and he contacted me. Well, now I didn't I contacted him,
but he had this bear named Sarah that they had
had for like uh twenty they had she lived to
be No, Sara only lived to be fifteen. Long story short.
The whole point of Sarah. She was that captured and
lived her life back in like the eighties. She was

(01:14:53):
one of the first bears they captured when they first
started doing research in the eighties. And basically all her
progeny to this day are exceptionally long lived as compared
to other bears. So they have this massive research project
that's now been going on for forty years. So they
just have all this incredible data. His whole his what

(01:15:17):
he believes is that um the nurture quote unquote like
like what a female bear teaches her cubs about how
to be a bear, not what's necessarily in aiding them. That,
just as in their DNA, is really important because basically,

(01:15:40):
generations later, Sarah's progeny are living like twice as long
as the average bear in Maine. And he, you know,
I'd have to read the story again to get the
exact quote from Randy, but Sarah was she She was
not killed over a bait, I don't think, because that's

(01:16:00):
what they were trying to determine, as how are you know,
how are these bears surviving are baited bear hunts? And
basically he believed that she had a negative interaction at
a bait site when she was young, and that spooked
her so bad that she avoided bait sites her whole life,
and she taught her young to do that, because that's

(01:16:21):
what they're finding because like most of the mortality in
Maine is from hunting over bait, which I mean, there's
a management tool that's a positive thing, Like that's how
the bears are being harvested, that's how they're managing their population.
And uh, to this day, in Sarah's progeny are not
getting killed over bait. That's really cool. Yeah, I was.

(01:16:42):
And that's that's getting back to what I was saying about,
you know, our our younger the younger females and um
and and their ability to raise up and teach their
cubs what they need to know to be bears. I mean,
there's there's and you see, um And I don't think
it's always age related, but certainly you would think that

(01:17:03):
younger ones would have a little bit harder go of
it than than the older females do. But um, but yeah,
I mean I would agree. I mean, that's that's why
it's so females and bear populations. Females are so important.
We're a little biased. If you're a bar biologist, you're
a little biased. You like, you like the girls, and
that's because they are the soul factor that is allowing

(01:17:26):
a population to be stable and or growing. So it's
that those females and their recruitment of other females, right,
and and so they're not only important in terms of
having the cubs, but they're important and making sure that
those cubs actually survived to become productive members of bare society.
So well, that's pretty incredible, it really is. Um, Sara,

(01:17:53):
is there anything that we've not talked about that you
would like to Oh, well, I would like to. Yeah.
I think the thing that that I'd like people to
walk away from with this. I mean, we could talk
bears all day long, and I do. UM. But as
far as Oklahoma management is concerned, you know, we we
touched on the fact that the ozark and the Watchtile

(01:18:14):
populations are distinct and separate populations. And we touched on
the fact that the um the landscape in those regions
are so is so different. And that's just an important
thing for people to think about, you know, when you're
if you're a sportsman and you're interested in hunting, or
you're hearing about UM the management plans here in Oklahoma

(01:18:36):
for bears, just to consider that, Yeah, just because we
have eleven or twelve hundred bears and the Watchitas doesn't
mean that you can manage the ozark population the same way.
So so the O d w C. And this is
a big reason why they work so closely with us
at os U UM. You know, they're working hard to
manage these populations separately because of their different needs. You're saying,

(01:19:02):
don't get upset if you can't, right, So we can't
hunt there just yet because everything that we've shown from
our den visits and our captures show that there are
not enough females and there's not enough female recruitment in
that population for it to be a stable population in
and of itself. So if we weren't still getting bears

(01:19:24):
coming over expanding from Arkansas, then we wouldn't be seeing
much of a growth in that area, UM. And so
so we've got to consider that, and we have every
interest in UM. You know, the story down in the Wachitas,
it's just such a conservation UM success story, right, you know,

(01:19:44):
to be able to have this population that we can
hunt now and give people the opportunity and it's still
a growing population even with that that happening. That's it's
just super exciting to know that we can give people
the opportunity to hunt the species and still know that
we're not negatively impacting that population, right, And that's what

(01:20:07):
we would like to see in the northeast in the
ozark region. UM. We just have to give it time.
And but then the management is still going to have
to be different up there, just because there are a
lot more people and because of that fragmented habitat. So
it will just be a totally different management scheme than
what we're seeing down here in the Wachitas and and
down here. We can bait barren private land now and

(01:20:29):
like it used to be just four counties, but now
they've expanded that I don't know, ten or twelve counties. Yeah,
they went to highway markers instead of county lines just
for the southeast region. Um makes more sense because you
don't know when you cross a county line when you're
in the woods necessarily, um. And so so yeah, I

(01:20:50):
mean even with that expanded area. UM. Quite frankly, those
those the expanded area that's now included in the hunting season. Um,
you know those are going to be that productive. There's
not that many bears out there just yet. I mean
there will be at some point, um. And what will
be out there are males most likely. And so for
hunting purposes, that's fantastic. You know, you can you can have.

(01:21:13):
The other population is growing west. It's moving west and
moving and that's part of what we're looking at now,
Courtney daughter, which is is going to be looking at.
We've moved out of the core area for trapping, and
now we're looking into some of those more expanded areas
to see kind of how that density changes as we
move west, um or the population size or density is

(01:21:33):
moving and changing. And then and then where we kind
of see that the females stop and it's just males,
you know, trying to get a feel for what what
we're looking at right now. Um, So they think there's
only about bears in Oklahoma and in the watch a
top population the most recent um from our research is
about it's a relatively small area. But yeah, and I

(01:21:59):
I know you were asking about density and some of
the other podcasts you've done and that that is nobody
ever gives me a good answer, Sarah, I got one
for you. Okay. So from our our early studies and
and like the work, um, it looks like there's about

(01:22:19):
I think they reported about eleven point four bears per
about thirty eight square miles. Now, so I heard you
thrown out there is there one bear per one square
mile kind of thing that shows that that's even less
um and and that's really kind of for the core area.
So that's where they're thick that's where they're the thickest. Right,

(01:22:41):
But now we have to take that with a grain
of salt. I mean, we're obviously we're having to say
this is within our study area, so based on home
ranges of the females and based on where our trap
lines are. So it's within that area, and it's just
with like one snapshot in time. Right. So so at
any given time. What's so deceiving about that is you

(01:23:02):
might go on that mountain right there and there may
be three or four bears one time. I mean you
might see them. If you've got one big clear cut
and it's loaded down with blackberries or poke berries, depending
on the time of year, then they're probably going to
be more than one bear out in that big clear
cut because that's where the food. Statistically, for the amount

(01:23:25):
of land, not even one bear per square mont right. Yeah, Okay,
you did a great job with us. Well you're the
very first weller did a great job. I'm on the bus.
You would have tried to complicate it, but they're they're
the ones out there doing the hard work and giving

(01:23:47):
us all this good information. So yeah, well that's pretty cool.
That's really cool. Um, call me any any thoughts, any questions. Yeah, Oh,
what's some of the other research projects that you guys
have done or what or what's going on now? Or
what's going on now? Uh, what was the research project
that you know was the biggest surprise or you know,

(01:24:10):
um the new thing that's happening right now. Well, I
already mentioned that will Children's is starting to We just
started callering um year links to truck for that and
so we're we're new into that project and don't have
any data on that yet. UM, not all put together yet.
But that's that's very exciting. We're excited to see. UM,

(01:24:32):
that information should tell us how they're going to expand
into this new region in the Ozarks right since we're
right at the beginning of that recolonization, it'll give us
a better feel by tracking both the males and the
females to see how they move into the the available
habitat that's there. UM. So that's that's really exciting. Something
that we're not very happy about but that we're looking

(01:24:52):
into is the cases of sarcoptic mange in that Ozark region.
It's happening in Arkansas. We've worked with Myron means Um
as well. We kind of are trying to collaborate and
everybody's scratching our heads trying to figure this out. But
um so, part of the new research also UM is
showing what we're doing is we're pulling blood samples and

(01:25:13):
skin scrapings from every bear we have our hands on,
both in the Ozarks and the Watchitas. We're not seeing
it in the watch as yet, fingers crossed. It doesn't
happen down here. Um. So we're pulling those samples and
the hopes of maybe seeing what the underlying conditions are
and why why certain bears in that region or get
are susceptible. You know, we had a right in asking

(01:25:36):
about you may not have seen it. Ask He asked
me to ask somebody about mange and bears in Arkansas,
and I forgot about it, but you just answered it.
What did you call it? Sarcoptic? Sarcoptic mange and it
like coyotes, like coyotes get that kind of thing. That's
the ones that looked horrible, I mean, and it can

(01:25:57):
kill them, it can. And we've actually, we believe that
we've had um this is anecdotally, but we believe that
we've lost a bear, two females to it because they
had it so bad going into den season that they
didn't it really takes its toll. They can't put back
on the pounds like they need to, they lose all

(01:26:18):
of their hair, they're itchy. They I mean, they don't
end up staying in their dens We've had several that
we've tracked they don't stay in their dens um because
they're hungry one and because it's got to be uncomfortable. Um. Now,
so it can kill them. But then there are also
cases where they seem to have reconquered. Um. I'm sorry now,

(01:26:41):
I was just gonna say that this is you know,
there's there's a lot of research going into mange with
bears right now. It is yeah, yeah, so Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is the closest to us until we got it here. Um,
but it's happening all across the country. Um. There there's

(01:27:02):
a lab and at University of Georgia that's that's actually
kind of the center for all of the research for
the mites and trying to figure this out. And they've
even found that, you know, conventional wisdom was that the
mic didn't last very long off of a host, like
a couple of hours would be a long time. But
what they found recently is that those mites in the

(01:27:24):
right conditions can actually live up to two weeks off
of a host. And and if that's the case, then
I mean you can only imagine if we're congregating bears
at wildlife feeders, um, you know, things like that, then
then there's the potential for spread. UM. So, there are
just a million questions that we have about this, and

(01:27:46):
hopefully hopefully we can look into this even more. But
at least right now, um will children so spearheaded, and
we've we've started taking these samples and hopefully we can
see if there are any underlying differences between the population
or maybe it's just there there and it's just not
here yet. I had a guy last fall I'd almost

(01:28:06):
forgot about this, UM send me. Well, a friend of
mine sent me a picture and it was his friend
that had this picture of a hairless It was. It
was a crazy sight. If you would have shown this
picture to ten people and said what animal is this,
you know, probably eight people would have got it wrong.
But absolutely hairless bear emaciated. I mean you could see

(01:28:31):
its ribs. And this guy was deer hunting feeding deer.
Uh up in the Ozarks in Madison County and Uh,
this bear was just like living on his cornpile first
year and like wouldn't leave. I mean, the bear was
about to die. And and he this guy messages to
me and said, hey, send this to my iron means.

(01:28:53):
And so I messaged it to my iron and uh,
Myron asked for the guy's phone number, and and I
don't know what they were going to try to do
with it. If they were going to try to, I
don't know what they did with I lost touch after that,
but it was. There have been cases where they've they've
had they've dispatched just just for humane reasons. I mean,
when they get that bad, it's it's hard to see them,

(01:29:17):
see them suffer like that. UM. There are UM, like
I think it's in Wisconsin where they actually they kind
of have a oh a scale for how bad the
individual is and if it if it meets a certain requirement.
They're actually treating with iver mactin and UM anecdotally they've

(01:29:39):
had experience without actually working. We have treated a few bears. UM.
We have treated a few bears that we've captured in
our our study and it has worked. One bear did
did get it again the next summer. UM. But one
shot did the trick? Yeah, and so um you know so,

(01:30:01):
so that's another thing that we're looking into now. We've
started putting some collars on some of those main GI
individuals without treatment to see can they recover from it
without treatment or is treatment something that we need to
look into from a long term management standpoint. Did there
be any danger in eating the bear that had some

(01:30:22):
bit of mange? I don't think so. Yeah, I mean,
because it's all it's all in the skin. It's not
inside them. It's just if they actually burrow and live
in their skin. That's why they get that. It's real um,
crusty and thick skin because those those mites are actually
living inside the skin. So once you've skinned out that bear,

(01:30:43):
everything underneath I would imagine should be just fine. Compromised
in terms of health, I mean not in a z
They're going to be thin, thinner or something for sure. Yeah, Yeah,
that's interesting. I'm glad you brought that up, because that's
somebody to ask us about that, and I didn't know
I had seen it. I've seen I've seen a bear

(01:31:05):
with mange up in the wilderness of Saskatchewan one time,
but that's the only bear in the wild wild that
I've ever seen that had it. So I mean, I
guess it's common in a sense, but just becoming more
common sounds like and in a word to the wise, Um,
humans can get bear mange. I know from experience. We

(01:31:27):
worked we worked um one of the females that we
worked up, I actually ended up getting mites on my stomach.
And um, the I mean, the good news, or at
least what I read was that they technically they could
bite me, but it would basically it's like a chicker bite.
They're not living on me, you know, they couldn't complete
a life cycle or anything. But well so I don't know.

(01:31:50):
And again, this is all part of what they're learning
about the mites, and and they used to think that
it was species specific, and now I think they found
that it's not necessarily So maybe coyotes can get the
same that the bears do and that kind of thing. Um,
those particular mites didn't get a chance to live on
me because I might have dipped myself with dog dipp

(01:32:11):
I didn't want to take don't want this reputation to
follow you, But you're the one that brought it up.
You are the only person I know that's had mains
the job a badge of honor in our book. I
have not shy about it, and I'd do it again
if I had to. Yeah, you know that I actually
was thinking that. I didn't say, I mean just like, yeah,

(01:32:32):
can you get it? Yeah? So now we actually UM,
so we carry in our kids, we've got taivex suits
and UM and then to kill the mites on our gear. UM.
We found that one of the things that the u
J folks found was that if you freezed below a
certain level for a certain amount of time, you'd kill
all of them. And so every bit of our gear.

(01:32:54):
If we actually handle any any Mangi bears or even
suspect that we're dealing with one that have mane, then
we have all these protocols so that we're not sharing
with other bears. So they carry a couple of kits
with them, just to be sure that in case you
have more than one captured day, you're not having to
use the same weight net on both bears. Things like that,
because we certainly don't want to take any chances of

(01:33:16):
us being the cause of the spread either. So it's
it's changed the face of our research just a little
bit not at not only in the fact that we're
trying to look into this issue, but also how we
function so that we don't contribute to the spread. Yeah,
as long as our bears don't start getting COVID, well,
I will tell you this that we are. We're already

(01:33:37):
making making plans and discussions at this point. You know,
we generally during our den work we usually have um
groups of folks that go out with US landowners different
things like that. And because we don't know if the
bears can get it from us or not, we're already
starting to think about how to manage our den seas

(01:33:59):
in this next year. There's a lot of people had
a lot of these are kind of so like it's
an educational situation. So we have a lot of people
and and we obviously already know that we are not
going to be able to or willing to handle it
the same way that we've done in the past. Um
even even as even as cautious as we always are

(01:34:20):
that we're having as little impact as possible on the
bears to begin with, UM with, with COVID, were definitely
concerned and have started started some plans to to see
how we're going to manage that since next year, and
in fact, it we even I mean even over the summer.
We had to live and work under different conditions because

(01:34:40):
of the university regulations, and we we took extra precautions
even with the bears we were dealing with if we
had any scares or anything that if we thought somebody
had potentially been exposed, and we tried to keep them
you know, with masks and gloves and things too. So
it's it goes beyond just the human world. It's kind
of weird to think that we're trying to protect these

(01:35:02):
animals from COVID. I heard a story of a guy
that I know that had a bat like like nesting
in his like porch, and he knew the wildlife guy
and I'm not even gonna name the state, and he
texted the picture to his wildlife buddy about this bat

(01:35:22):
and what he should do. This is right in the
heat of COVID. And the guy was like, just make
sure you don't I mean, essentially, he said, don't give
the bat your COVID. Really, he said, he was like,
don't get he wasn't worried about the bat having COVID
give it to him. He was like if you have COVID,
we don't want the bat to get COVID, and then

(01:35:45):
that is totally red. Well, Sarah, truly a pleasure talking
with it, for real. I respect what you're doing and
just appreciate, appreciate your knowledge and expertise over here in Oklahoma.
And I mean no doubt you've handled more bears than
anybody over here. I would say from my I don't
have an Oklahoma bear handling meter, but if I did,

(01:36:08):
I think I think you would probably have. Jeff Jeff
Ford might rival me on he might, but yeah, you're right,
you're right. But I've been definitely extremely fortunate too to
get to do what I've done here. Yeah, for sure,
And I appreciate you having me. This is I could
talk bears all day long, so well, and every time
I do a podcast with somebody that's really an expert,

(01:36:29):
always as soon as we shut this thing off, I'm
gonna go bad. Damn. Why didn't I ask her about that?
So now we'll maybe we'll find a reason to do
this again. So follow up. Yeah, yeah, so I really
appreciate it. But keep the wild place as wild because
that's where the bears live.

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