Hungry bears in Smokies may be nuisance

There was a shortage of acorns — a bear staple — last fall and natural food sources won’t improve much for bears now coming out of hibernation until berries ripen in the summer.

Managers of the 520,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border predict bears will be eager to rifle through trash cans, backpacks and picnic baskets and inevitably will be encountering people.

“This year we suspect higher than normal nuisance activity from black bears, higher than normal conflicts,” said Kim DeLozier, the supervisory wildlife biologist for the park. “We suspect that they’ll be investigating our campgrounds and picnic areas.”

There haven’t been any bear incidents this year, but that could change in late spring when more visitors are coming to the park and participating in outdoor activities.

A yearling bear was spotted along Little River Road in the past couple of days and may be caught and moved to the Appalachian Bear Center in Townsend, DeLozier said. Two bears have already been taken there.

Lisa Stewart, curator of the center, said cubs that become large enough to wander from their mothers can become nuisances “depending on how hungry they get,” but older animals accustomed to easy meals, such as birdseed, are the biggest problem.

Bear-human incidents decrease in late September, October and November, when the volume of visitors falls off and acorns are more abundant, DeLozier said.

There are about 1,350 black bears in the park — fewer than two bears per square mile. On average, about 24 nuisance bear cases occur in the Smokies each year and one human is injured.

A school teacher from Cosby, Tenn., was killed by a female bear and her cub near the Elkmont campground on May 21, 2000, in the park’s only fatal bear attack. The bears were euthanized.

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Great Smoky Mountains: http://www.nps.gov/grsm