Wanted: Bear Cooperators and Premolars (the bears’ teeth; not yours)
Nov
27
Written by:
11/27/2012 11:21 AM
Last year North Carolina hunters harvested more than 2,000 black bears, from the mountains to the coast. And while those bears might be a great accomplishment and trophy to the hunters who bagged them, they are just as valuable to us at the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
Not only is bear hunting in North Carolina a great tradition, it also supplies our biologists with the information they need to monitor bear populations better, make management decisions, and evaluate the impacts of bear harvests. You can help us by becoming a bear cooperator. By recording age and sex of harvested bears over a period of years, biologists can model bear populations more accurately.
Wildlife Commission biological staff also collects information on our bear populations through a variety of other means, including scent stations, non-harvest mortalities, nuisance activities and bear observations.The information derived from these monitoring activities helps the Commission track trends in the bear population and provides for science-based decisionmaking and biologically sound management principles. You can see many of our findings here.
How can you help? Become a bear cooperator. We don’t need your bear. We just need information about your bear and the premolars from the upper jaw of the bear. (See photo for instructions.) You can call our office at 919-707-0050 for more information, or extract the teeth yourself, and send them, along with the downloadable data sheet, to us. The data sheet asks you to tell us when and where your bear was harvested, along with some other information.
These molars provide a wealth of information about age, sex and health of bears.