Wildlife is Beary Awesome!

 June 29-30, 2022

Well, since I GET to spend some time with wildlife this trip to Bolivar, PA to see bears up close and personal was a no brainer! I am so fortunate that most of my tableaux have been a treasurer and this one was no exception! 

The PA Game Commission (the Southwest Region Office sponsored this wonderful two day professional development workshop for educators, and I just had to be a part of it! I don't think I need to explain my tableau, but I can say that the title of the training was "Wild About Bears". Not only because bears are well... cool... it is because this program is part of the bigger program Project Wild that was developed by the Association of Fish and Wildlife who wants to raise awareness of conservation of wildlife and their habitats for kids in K-12. They provided us with their awesome curriculum book as part of this FREE training!!

Although I didn't personally think I would use the curriculum in my particular content and age level, I was so excited to learn more about black bears (the only type of bear in Pennsylvania). I also saw bears processed and learned so many facts that I have become insanely annoying with bear "fun facts"! I also learned so much about the PA Game Commission and the many, many types of staff members (so much more than law enforcement).

Our fearless leader, Game Warden Seth Masoras (left), lead our two day activities with the help of some great people from the Harrisburg main office (ladies right)! 

Game Wardens from the region also helped with processing the bears on the first day. They were hoping to have one bear for us to witness processing, but surprisingly, the Wardens were able to bring in six bears from four different counties (Somerset, Indiana, Cambria, and Westmoreland), so we were able to get into smaller groups to watch and even participate in the processing.

Bears are trapped in culvert traps or snares and processed either in the field or at the office. They trap nuisance bears (bears that are in locations that have the possibility to have bear-human conflict) and then they relocate them to one of the nearby State Game Lands (SGL). They are also tasked with tagging and recording 700 bears before harvest season, so they can get a guesstimation of the bear population each year. We are the only state that does this for the previous year. Most other states are five years behind in their population estimates. Go, PA! We have an ideal habitat for black bears!

Surprisingly, they only use donuts to bait their traps (no joke, no code... real donuts - this office uses Dunkin' Donuts' throw aways!)

The bear I helped process was aprox. four years old and weighed about 268 pounds. They measure the girth of the bear and then calculate the weight by using the chart to the right. They determine the age with certain visual factors, but they extract the milk tooth of the bear (don't worry it doesn't hurt them... they are knocked out and
the tooth isn't needed) to get an exact year. They put it in a solution and then rings form kind of like the rings on a tree. 

They tag each ear, so if the bear is caught again, they will have a record to match in their database. They tag the right ear with the larger number and the left ear with a smaller number then they tattoo the inside of the lip of the bear with the larger number in case the ear tags fall off. This bear's tags (which I helped tag) were 39139 and 39140. 

Of the six bears that day, one had mange which is prevalent in the area. Since mange is highly contagious, it was once thought that animals with the disease needed to be euthanized, but through a study done in the area, it was determined that the survival rate of bears with or without treatment was 80%, so they no longer put the animals down or treat them. If a bear is injured, they do their best to treat the animal with the same medicines that would be used on humans (like triple antibiotic cream), which makes sense because people may consume these animals.

The biggest bear of the day was an eight year old weighing a whopping 465 pounds! He was first caught and tagged in 2015, and this was the third time he was caught. He had lost his ear tags, and they tracked him from his tattoo which they had to re-ink manually. He was fortunately facing the correct way, so they did not remove him from the trap.

After all the processing was complete, we were able to pose with the bear we were with. It was awesome and beary cool! All of these bears were going to be relocated to SGL 42 which we would visit the next day.

We returned to the classroom where we looked through our Project Wild Curriculum Guide and practiced four of the lessons together (two inside and two outside). 

In between doing the classroom activities, we had the pleasure of meeting Emily Carrollo our state Bear Biologist (yes, we have a Bear Biologist and a deer one too - among many others!!). She was so knowledgeable and passionate about bears. Not just black bears but all bears. There was so much I did not know! One of the most interesting facts I learned is that sows (female bears) mate in June and July (and they can be fertilized by more than one boar (male bears) and the eggs do not attach to the uterus until November when the bears start to den (not hibernate per se). Then they basically give birth when they are in their semi-hibernation state in the den (I know crazy, right?). In PA, a liter is 1-3 (above the national average) and the earliest a bear can be fertile is 2.5 yrs of age (earlier than the national average). Again, go, PA bear habitat!

Warden Masoras also talked to us about avoiding bear-human conflict. Remember, the bears do not mean harm. If you leave them alone, they will probably just go away! Bears will not attack a human unprovoked but always be aware if there are cubs around. It is not just a t-shirt slogan that mama bears are protective! Seth shared some personal stories about relocating nuisance bears and getting sows to adopt orphaned cubs. Did you know that bears know their cubs by smell? They can't count, so as long as a bear smells a cub and it smells right, they will accept it. They emphasized many times that it is a good thing bears can't count! 

It was a coincidence that one of the wardens who joined us on Day 2 was making the news by relocating seven bears in four days. Here is his story, but it was cooler to hear his first hand account! 

Since I was coming from the other end of the county, I stayed in Ligonier at the Ramada Inn which incidentally is the only hotel within 15 miles. Ligonier is a small town which has a traffic circle called

The Diamond (I was corrected quickly on that one) which was rebuilt to the Mellon family's specifications to closely resemble how it was when it was first built (this is Mellon family domain here). I also ate at the Wickedly Googly which was a bar/restaurant/bowling alley. It was quaint and good. I couldn't visit any of the shops because they closed by the time I was there, but I would definitely enjoy that (I hear the ice cream shop has the best ice cream anywhere).

Day 2 was a visit to SGL 42 which happens to border Rachelwood (full disclosure - don't know how accurate this site is) which is a nature preserve owned by the Mellon family. We visited three research sites that are scattered throughout the game lands. We witnessed the processing of a bear in her habitat which was snared and processed on site. She was too little for a GPS collar, so they had to skip that process (the PGC collar females, so they can locate the dens).

We travelled in PA Game Commission trucks because of the rough terrain (maybe it is just me, but that is also cool!)

The snares they use on-site are kind of "specialized". Warden Masaros's favorite is this bucket where the bear puts his hand in to get a donut and is snared on the way out. Unfortunately, this baby bear got her head (not neck) stuck and then Seth was able to get her paw snared after the fact purely by luck/accident.

We also got to stop and see the remnants of an old iron furnace which I guess are all over Westmoreland County. We saw one that was preserved, but we were driving out of the SGL onto private land, so I didn't get a pic of that one. 

We learned about signs to look for if you are tracking bears in their habitat like they follow their own tracks (because bears are lazy) and looking for claw marks in the wood, aggressively broken branches, and overturned boulders. 

We returned to the office where we received our certificates and thanked the Game Wardens and the staff of the PA Game Commission for a very insightful and adventurous time!

If you would like to learn more about bears, here is a great website, Bear Wise. And to learn more about how to live with wildlife, here is a great resource for that, Wildlife Help.

I was always been a fan of bears, so this experience was one in a million for me. When I got home, I promptly framed and displayed my certificate and bought a mama bear mug! I wanted to purchase some PA Game Commission gear, but unfortunately, it is not available to the public, but I will make a donation instead (probably my deer license which I won't get to take advantage of LOL)!