Bear biologist Mark Ternent is busy these days with his daredevil act of entering the dens to assess the health and size of Pennsylvania’s bruin population. Ternent, must complete 30 dens by the end of this month to figure out the optimal ratio of bears to people to determine how many bears need to be killed to keep the population under control.
Black bear encounters are growing in Pennsylvania and other Eastern states even though of the 20 bear attacks over the last three decades did not claim a single life.
The bear-human conflict has become a concern for the bear biologists from around the eastern United States and Canada who are meeting in West Virginia next month to discuss ways to curb the encounters.
Steve Williams, president of the Wildlife Management Institute and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said,
I think most states are becoming more aggressive in managing these populations, and it’s a direct result of human-wildlife encounters.
Photo Credit: AP/Matt Rourke