Daring Rescue; FWC Biologist Saves Drowning Bear
June 30, 2008
A 375-pound male black bear with a penchant for beachfront browsing was on dry land Saturday after a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) biologist pulled the tranquilized animal from Gulf of Mexico waters in Florida’s Panhandle.
“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I jumped in,” said biologist Adam Warwick, who saw the bear struggling in the warm Gulf waters after it had been hit with a tranquilizer dart.
“It was a spur of the moment decision,” he said. “I had a lot of adrenaline pumping when I saw the bear in the water.”
The bear was roaming through a residential area Tuesday on Alligator Point, a neighborhood of about 100 homes on a small peninsula about 40 miles south of Tallahassee.
To prevent bears from wandering into residential neighborhoods, the FWC urges residents to secure garbage cans and other sources of food that might attract bears.
FWC officials responded to reports of a bear in the area and found the animal underneath a beachfront home. Their plan was to move it to a remote location, back in the wild.
The tranquilizer dart took longer than expected to work, and Warwick said the animal bolted into the Gulf in an effort to escape.
Warwick was worried the bear was already showing the effects of the immobilizing drug and that the bear couldn’t swim the four miles to land.
“At that point, I decided to go in after the bear,” Warwick said. “I wanted to keep him from swimming into deeper water.”
The animal was about 25 yards from shore when he jumped into the water.
“I was in the water swimming toward the bear, trying to prevent him from swimming into deeper water,” Warwick said. “He was now losing function (an effect of the drugs) in his arms and legs, and was obviously in distress.”
Warwick said he tried to splash and create commotion in an attempt to get the bear to head back to the shore.
“Instead, the clearly confused bear looked at me as if he was either going to go by, through or over me . . . and at times he even looked as if he was just going to climb on top of me to keep from drowning.”
Warwick said that after a few minutes the bear reared up on his hind legs as if to lunge at him, but instead fell straight backwards and was submerged.
“At that point I knew I had to keep the bear from drowning,” he said. “After a few seconds the bear popped his head up out of the water and thrashed around a bit, but could obviously no longer keep his head above water.”
Warwick kept one arm underneath the bear and the other gripping the scruff of its neck to keep the bear’s head above water. Warwick said he walked barefoot over concrete blocks crusted with barnacles in the 4-foot-deep water as he tried to guide and use the water to help float the bear back to shore.
He said he cut his feet on the barnacles and the bear scratched him once on the foot, but he was otherwise uninjured.
Area resident Wendy Chandler said Warwick looked like a lifeguard, pulling a tired swimmer to shore.
During Warwick’s trek, FWC Officer Travis Huckeba and a bystander with a boat approached Warwick and the bear in the water. The bear was startled and Warwick lost his grip until the boat backed off.
Warwick said the bear’s buoyancy made his job less difficult.
“It’s a lot easier to drag a bear in 4-foot water than move him on dry land,” he said.
When Warwick and the bear made it to shore, “A bystander arrived out of nowhere with a backhoe and, with some assistance, we were able to load the bear into the bucket and then into an FWC truck,” Warwick said.
Thad Brett, a general contractor who lives in the area and had a backhoe for work he was doing to his house, said his wife had seen the commotion and told him Warwick was trying to get the bear out of the water.
“I knew how hard it would be to get that bear out,” Brett said. “I could see he was about waist-deep in the water, and I came down with the backhoe.”
Brett said he positioned the bucket of the backhoe in the water so the bear could be lifted out and moved to the truck bed.
“It’s good to have good guys like (Warwick) around,” Brett said. “We’re real glad to have the FWC come out and help us with these bears, and we were real glad the bear was going to be relocated.”
The bear was transported to the FWC Tate’s Hell office and Warwick and FWC’s Ron Copley relocated the bear to the Osceola National Forest near Lake City.
“He was going up under people’s houses, probably trying to cool off,” Chandler said. “Kids were going up and down the stairs and anything might happen. We’re all pulling for the bear to get adjusted in his new home.”Â
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Shortnose Gar Added to Arkansas Record List
June 12, 2008
LAMAR – Lindsey Lewis of Greenbrier put his name in the Arkansas fishing record book with a 4-pound, 7-ounce shortnose gar landed May 24.
Lewis was fishing with a live crayfish in the Big Piney Creek arm of Lake Dardanelle when the 35-inch fish struck. It’s the first Arkansas shortnose gar record for rod and reel. The Arkansas unrestricted-tackle record stands at 6 pounds, 12 ounces, taken by Robert Perkins from Lake Conway in 1998.
Lewis weighed the fish at Four Seasons Market in Russellville. The species was verified by Frank Leone, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission fisheries biologist.
With the addition of shortnose gar, the Arkansas record fish list includes 57 species, five of which are world records.
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Hunters Shoot 22,308 Turkeys During First Week of Season
May 6, 2008
This year’s first-week harvest was down just 2 percent from 2007.
JEFFERSON CITY-Hunters checked 22,308 turkeys during the first week of Missouri’s spring turkey season. The state’s top turkey biologist says that is very good, considering the circumstances.
The first-week harvest was virtually the same as last year, when hunters bagged 22,764 birds. Top harvest counties were: Franklin, 459; Osage, 414; and Texas, 411.
Missouri Department of Conservation Resource Scientist Tom Dailey said he was pleased to see the opening-week figures.
“Keeping up with last year’s harvest is good news,” said Dailey. “The state’s turkey flock has had some tough breaks in recent years, especially last year.”
A severe cold snap the first week of April 2007 made things tough for both turkeys and turkey hunters. The deep freeze forced some hens to desert their nests and reset the clock on turkey mating behavior. As a result, last year’s first-week turkey harvest was the smallest in 10 years, and this was followed by production of young turkeys that was the second-lowest on record.
Missouri’s spring turkey season is timed to put hunters in the woods at about the same time that turkey hens begin incubating their eggs. This timing permits hens and gobblers to take care of the business of replacing themselves before hunters start harvesting male turkeys. It also makes gobblers more receptive to the calls of hunters.
Hunters had different conditions this year. This spring has been cooler and wetter than normal, and turkey mating behavior might be behind schedule.
“The week before the season opened, our volunteer gobbling study indicated that the number of gobbles heard per observer was only 27 compared to 38 in 2007,” said Dailey. “There is a chance that gobbling will pick up as the season progresses. We know there are relatively more 2-year-old-birds, but fewer jakes, because of fair production in 2006 and very poor production in 2007.
Opening day was warm and sunny. Hunters checked more than 7,000 birds that day alone.
Thunderstorms marred the second day of the season in much of the state, but weather during the following five days was generally favorable for hunting.
Before the season opened, Dailey predicted that this year’s final turkey harvest would be similar to last year’s, with hunters taking approximately 3,000 turkeys during the two-day youth season and another 45,000 during the regular spring season. He stands by that prediction. In previous years the first-week harvests have been 45 to 50 percent of the total taken during the three-week season, so this year’s harvest likely will not be much different than in 2007.
“Weather is the least predictable factor in turkey harvest,” said Dailey. “If we continue to have good weather, this year’s harvest could be around 45,000 again. Wind, rain and colder-than-normal temperatures might cut into that a little, but we have a strong start.”
Dailey said he hopes the weather also will help turkeys make up some of the losses they have suffered in recent years. He said a strong spring harvest will not prevent turkey numbers from increasing if hens get a chance to bring off a strong crop of poults.
“With some luck, we will have average weather in May and June, and the state’s turkey flock will begin to rebuild,” said Dailey. “Turkeys are surprisingly prolific. Their numbers can bounce back within a few years with the right conditions.”
-Jim Low-
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Commission Offers Tips for Dealing with Black Bears
May 5, 2008
RALEIGH, N.C. (April 29, 2008)– With the number of bears – and people – increasing in the western part of the state, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is warning people not to feed animals, either purposely or inadvertently, that wander into residential areas.
While black bears are rarely aggressive toward people, they can become bold when they are used to feeding on human-provided foods, such as garbage and bird seed.
“Feeding a bear rewards it for coming in close proximity to you and your home,” said Michael Juhan, a commission biologist. “When the food becomes unavailable, the bear may resort to damaging items around your property in search of it. In addition, bears feeding on unnatural food sources around your home may cause them to lose their fear of humans and approach them – a situation that rarely ends well for the bear and could have potential safety issues for humans as well.”
Contrary to popular belief, commission employees will not trap and relocate bears who are a nuisance for homeowners and residents, because this would simply move the problem, rather than solve it. The solution is to modify your habits, such as how you feed your pet(s) or where you store your garbage, before a problem begins. If a bear appears in the neighborhood, immediately remove all unnatural food sources so that the bear will be encouraged to move on. These solutions are much better for the neighborhood and for the bears.
Over the past decade, the commission has received a 70 percent increase in the number of complaints of human-bear conflicts in western North Carolina, including bears rummaging through trash cans, tearing down bird feeders, peering in doors and windows and frightening homeowners.
However, many of the incidents, most of which occur in the spring and summer, can be resolved if residents take just a few simple steps.
They include:
- Secure bags of trash inside cans stored in a garage, basement or other secure area, and place outside as late as possible on trash pick-up days – not the night before.
- Purchase bear-proof garbage cans or bear-proof your existing garbage container by outfitting it with a secure latching system.
- Discontinue feeding wild birds during spring and summer, even with feeders advertised as “bear proof.” Bears can still be attracted to seed that spills on the ground.
- Do not “free-feed” pets outdoors. If you must feed pets outdoors, make sure all food is consumed.
- Clean all food and grease from barbecue grills after each use. Bears are attracted to the food odors and may investigate.
For more information on coexisting with black bears, click here.
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Spring Bighorn Sheep Survey Shows Healthy Population
April 30, 2008
Western North Dakota’s bighorn sheep population is in good shape, based on observations during the North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s annual bighorn sheep survey in March.
Brett Wiedmann, department big game biologist in Dickinson, said biologists counted 282 bighorn sheep – 93 rams, 147 ewes and 42 lambs. This year’s total represents a 9 percent increase from 2007 and 33 percent higher than the five-year average.
In addition, the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park was holding approximately 25 sheep.
“Following a major die-off in 1998 that decimated our population to only 130 animals, it has been our objective to once again reach and maintain a minimum of 300 bighorns in the state,” Wiedmann said. “We are very encouraged to have reached our goal this year.”
Each summer, typically in August, Game and Fish Department biologists count and classify all sheep. The following March, the spring survey is conducted for biologists to go back and recount lambs to determine lamb recruitment.
“We need to check on their health after the winter,” Wiedmann said while noting the first year is vital for survival because of predators and winter conditions. “Since last fall’s survey, lamb recruitment was 33 percent, about average for North Dakota. We also found there were about 63 rams per 100 ewes. We are in good shape.”
The population level appears to be an indication of how many apply for the opportunity to hunt bighorn sheep in the badlands. “Just look at the numbers,” Wiedmann said. “Our bighorn sheep population is larger than it has been in a number of years, and this year we had a record number of applicants (more than 10,000) that put in for the five sheep licenses. Encouragingly, we have significant number of young rams, so once they mature a bit, we also hope to reach our goal of issuing eight licenses annually.”
 - North Dakota Game and Fish Department -
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