news story--south florida nuisance bear drill

[Emily]

from the south Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-b ... 3135.story

Wildlife officials practice tactics for removing pesky black bears
Animals are more of a nuisance than a threat, officials say

By C. Ron Allen, Sun Sentinel
November 19, 2009
The young black bear had forgone the wild in favor of easier pickings in the encroaching human habitat of western Palm Beach County when a state wildlife officer encountered it on Thursday.

"Get out of here bear!" yelled Officer Kyle Patterson, 23, of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, before pelting it in the hindquarters with rubber ball to scare it back into the woods.

It wasn't a real bear, but a dramatization on the gun range at the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area, part of a class on non-lethal techniques for about a dozen officers and educators sponsored by the wildlife commission.

Michael A. Orlando, a state wildlife biologist who specializes in black bears, said the objective is to get the bear back in the woods while minimizing injury.

After a classroom session, they practiced using slingshots and fired firecrackers, beanbags and paintballs — all non-lethal tools that can be used to avoid negative bear-human conflicts.

"We can use a range of things. We can start out with just noise makers, cracker shells that will scare the bear away," Orlando said. "Or we have some active rounds like paint balls or less lethal beanbag rounds that will touch the bear to inflict minor pain to get our point across that 'We want you out of the area.' "

"The idea is to make a human encounter as unpleasant as possible for the bear.

"We want the bear to associate the negative stimulus of being shot in the backside with a bean bag with a human voice because the next time somebody says, 'Hey bear, get out of here,' the bear doesn't know if he's gonna have a bean bag flying at him or a paint ball or a cracker shell," Orlando said.

The black bears, which are not like fearsome grizzlies, are more of a nuisance than a threat, and pose little, if any danger to humans.

In April, a 310-pound bear was seen lurking near a neighborhood and a school in Weston in southwest Broward County. It was the first time in 30 years that a black bear has been in the county. Officials caught it after a few days, tagged it and relocated it to the Picayune Strand State Forest in western Collier County, on Florida's west coast. But it found its way to the east coast and in June showed up in Wellington.

Wildlife officers caught the bear and dropped him off at Osceola National Forest, near the Georgia border. Again, the bear chose not to roam on the more than 200,000 acres and wound up in a neighborhod. He continued to hang out around humans until in August he ended up in a southeast Georgia yard, where the homeowner shot and killed him.

Florida black bears usually are found in the Panhandle, Central Florida and the Big Cypress National Preserve, which is swampland contained mostly in Collier County.

C. Ron Allen can be reached at crallen@SunSentinel.com or 561-243-6611.