In the August 2019 issue of Saltscapes, I suggested what to do when you encounter a black bear in nature. What’s the bear doing? Has it seen you? Is it moving towards or away from you? Your reaction should depend on the situation.

Black bears are smart. They used to be dwellers of mature forests with open patches of younger forests. Years ago, they were reported hibernating in nests they had assembled in the upper sections of old growth trees in northern New Brunswick. Bears have gradually had to adapt to humans as we’ve moved into their territories, except in P.E.I., where they were extirpated.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, there are two Black bear hunting/trapping seasons. One is April 1-July 13. The other is August 10-Nov. 30. Since 2023, bear hunters have to possess a valid big game black bear licence and a valid trapping licence to set foot hold trapping devices for black bear. Two bears of either sex are allowed, but females with cubs cannot be taken. (Apparently no one has complained about this obvious oversight, that females with cubs may stash the cubs, so they don’t appear at a bait site.) Newfoundland and Labrador has more wild spaces for bears and a comparatively low human population, so there are fewer issues.

Encroaching developments like ski resorts, cottages, homes, and urban sprawl can result in more humans in traditional bear territories. Displaced bears relocate to farming areas that retain some forests. They are also caught on security cameras patrolling streets in villages and towns after dark.

When humans began invading the heavily forested Pocono Plateau of Pennsylvania more than 50 years ago, the black bears decided to stay. At that time, biologist Gary Alt studied how well people and black bears might coexist.

In many ways, bears in the community were easier to deal with than humans. It’s natural for folks to be concerned when a female bear and her cubs take up residence under their deck. But when people began to understand that bears don’t feed on little kids, they became more comfortable with the idea of peaceful coexistence.

Whenever humans, deliberately or accidentally, make food available to white-tailed deer, raccoons, coyotes, or bears, the potential for trouble mounts. Deer also attract coyotes, bears, bobcats, and cougars.

If humans would keep food and food waste away from raccoons, coyotes, and bears, and stopped feeding deer, we might not have more wild animals per square kilometre in some of our villages, towns, and cities than exist normally in nature. Everyone at a community level would have to commit to not making edibles available to them.

Deer would still browse plants and twigs, so some protections would still be needed. After all, roughly 300 years ago Europeans arrived and began taking the most productive lands for themselves, clearing the forests, displacing not only First Nations but the forest wildlife that once lived there.

A fall bear hunt has been legal in Nova Scotia for years. This year the Nova Scotian provincial government proposed a spring bear hunt. Full disclosure: I’m a past president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters, and current president of Nature Nova Scotia. We advocated for keeping the fall hunting/trapping bear season, but opposed a spring season.

As a wildlife biologist, I worked for the province of Nova Scotia for decades. I’ve lived here all my adult life. I own land here and in New Brunswick. In my opinion, successive provincial governments in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have put wildlife biologists in the poorly-funded back seat  of the forest ecology bus, while the elected government folks in the front seat cheerlead for industrial forestry interests. Watching the demise of forests unfold, federal governments have repeatedly hit the snooze button. To learn more about that, see the State of the Forest Report: Seeing through the Spin, published by The David Suzuki Foundation, Nature Canada and partners, and available online.

When biologists were hired, beginning in the 1970s, some of us thought wildlife interests would be incorporated into new habitat management plans. Instead, biologists gradually became window dressing while heavy machinery steadily replaced chainsaws and skidders to remove the woods and habitats even faster than before.

Too many forests have been repeatedly harvested over three centuries, each time replaced by less diverse softwood-dominated forests or converted with herbicides to monoculture softwood plantations. Dwellers of mature forests, from lichens to birds, bears and moose, have lost vast areas of biologically diverse habitats.

Many forest wildlife populations have diminished in proportion to that mature forest habitat loss. The black bears are only one of the affected species. Wildlife officials in the Atlantic provinces have been held in planning mode while forests have been plundered and degraded. Insufficient data exists for the effective management of many species, not just the black bears. The Nova Scotian government has admitted that it does not know how many bears live here.

When the results of the government’s spring bear hunt questionnaire were tallied, the majority did not want it. There were many reasons for that opposition.

Are black bear populations increasing, stable, or declining? A spring hunt would have added mortality to an unknown bear population.

Using human-associated and scented food like stale donuts for bait as bears come out of hibernation could easily contribute to more bear habituation to humans and result in more “problem” bears.

After the winter bears are thin and famished. Females have young cubs. They need spring and summer food to return to good physical condition.

Hunting in a blind over a bait station presents a challenge for sex identification, given a legal male-bear-only hunt. Females sometimes hide cubs before approaching a bait station, and could be shot, creating orphan cubs.

The current fall hunting/trapping regulations permit one person to take three bears. Perhaps that’s enough?

Spring is a favourite time for nature lovers. A bear hunt would deter many folks from experiencing their traditional outdoor experiences.

Two years ago, biologists in North Carolina watched a mother black bear teaching her cubs to open vehicle doors. Why? Because often there’s food. Two cubs subsequently opened and climbed into an SUV. The door accidently shut while they were rummaging inside for edibles. That made them panic. By the time momma bear came to their rescue and opened the back hatch, the cubs had done $4,000 in damage to the vehicle.

Black bears will keep adapting to the presence of humans, especially when food is involved. This spring, they’re opening vehicle doors in Nova Scotia as well, as reported to me by a friend in the western part of the province. It’s time people adapted to bears by keeping food out of their reach, and locking doors.

As the human population increases and wildlife populations and their habitats continue to plummet worldwide, will we adjust and make room for our wildlife neighbours?