MONTPELIER, Vt. – Vermont's scientific bear management program recently received a significant funding contribution from the Vermont Bear Hound Association to support continuing research on bear reproduction and populations dynamics, according to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.
"The Vermont Bear Hound Association gave the Fish and Wildlife Department a generous donation of $3,042 to help us purchase two new satellite GPS bear tracking collars," said Vermont Fish and Wildlife's Bear Project Leader Jaclyn Comeau. "The collars will be used to monitor female bears to help collect data on bear reproduction success and the bear population. This enables us to increase our sample size of 18 collared females to 20 collared females."
Department staff are collaring female bears in the Green Mountains and the Connecticut River Valley to learn about reproduction and survival as well as how different types of major food sources may influence reproduction.
"This donation is a continuation of the Vermont Bear Hound Association's commitment to the conservation of black bears in Vermont," added Comeau. "Association members have a long history of partnering with us in bear research efforts along with supporting non-lethal mitigation of human-bear conflicts. They assisted with the capture of bears for studies to learn about population dynamics in the 1970s and 1980s, they supported studies about bear habitat needs in the 1990s and 2010s, and now they are helping with our latest research."
"The Association also donated the first bear live-trap to the department to help capture bears involved in human-bear conflicts. They created 'Bearproofing Beehives,' an informative pamphlet for beekeepers, to help prevent conflicts with bears at a time when damage to apiaries was one of the most common causes for bears to be euthanized, and they often donate their time to non-lethally run bears out of conflict situations involving dumpsters, livestock and corn depredation."
Initial results of the new bear reproduction study are not anticipated until 2031, but once available, the results will complement the department's approach to estimating Vermont's bear population trends.