Flooding Takes a Toll on Black Bear Cubs

I read in Sunday's paper about last year's Mississippi River floods might have killed a number of black bear cubs in Mississippi the state's black bear program leader said.

Three radio-collared females known to have had cubs this year had also given birth a year ago, said Brad Young of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.

"Cubs stay with their mothers for 16 months," he said."  What we're taking away from this is that the litters of all three of those females were killed by high water.  That's why they had litters this year."

Young said about 120 black bears live in the state - at least 80 percent of them are Louisiana black bears and the rest American black bears.  With number of both subspecies so low, Mississippi has listed all back bears as endangered.

"While the flood didn't have much effect on adult bears, obviously it had a big effect on our cub survival from last year," Young said.

To document and track cubs, a wildlife agent tranquilizes the mother with a dart while she's in the den. Those might be on the ground or high in a hollow tree, but the agents can get up trees so quietly that the bear doesn't know they're coming, Young said.

Then the agent takes the cubs out of the den.  They get weighed, measured and implanted with a microchip between their shoulders just like the microchips used to identify cats and dogs.  After that, the mother's radio collar is replaced so it will last until the next spring.

"We put the whole family group back together and leave them in the den," he said

Record flooding was reported all along the Mississippi River in April, May and June 2011.
(The Vicksburg Post)