Asheville Urban/Suburban Bear Study Phase 2 focuses on human-bear interactions

ASHEVILLE - It’s gut check time for black bears.

If they were waddling around Western North Carolina all summer, climbing trees and putting on a show as they crossed roads, highways and backyard patios, the fall is their time to get serious as they prepare to den for the winter.

They need to bulk up for the long sleep, to the tune of packing in 20,000 calories a day.

How does a bear do it? By munching every bug, berry and acorn in sight as they forage nearly all day, every day, said Ashley Hobbs, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s assistant furbearer and black bear biologist.

“Bears are entering hyperphagia in the fall, when they’re trying to rack up those calories. They’re moving and eating 23 hours a day. They tend to get into more trouble this time of year. Their eating habits have changed and switching into eating mode,” Hobbs said.

That means, bears will also be on the lookout for any “freebies,” such as trash, bird feeders just dangling in their reach and pet food left outdoors.

It is also now bear hunting season in WNC, which can drive more bears out of the woods. The season started Oct. 14 and runs through Nov. 23, then reopens Dec. 16-Jan. 3.

The actions of humans are increasingly affecting the wild lives of bears, Hobbs said, and that's one of the main reasons for the North Carolina Urban/Suburban Bear Study.

The cooperative research study between North Carolina State University and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, which began with Phase 1 in April 2014, is the first study of its kind in the Southeast. Phase 2 of the study began this past April and just ended its bear trapping and collaring segment, now heading full bore into its human-focused study, aka, getting people to get with the program and learn to become “BearWise” certified.

Janet Winemiller, a relative newcomer to WNC, said she found out the hard way that she had moved unknowingly into bear country.

When Janet and her husband, Tom Winemiller, moved to Town Mountain three years ago, they came for the beautiful mountain scenery and a home two minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

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It was their dream semiretirement home. Except that no one told them about the night prowlers.

Black bears, some that can grow to over 500 pounds, make their homes and dens in the lush forests of protected areas like the parkway, but also in neighborhoods like Town Mountain, overlooking downtown, where there is a never-ending supply of free food in the form of trash, bird seed, dog food and greasy remnants on barbecue grills.

“We don’t have bears in Ohio,” said Janet Winemiller, who lives in the Mountain Meadows Phase 1 neighborhood.

“But no one educated us as to the challenges of living with bears as far as trash. No one told us to get a bear proof container, so we didn’t. After two months of seeing trash thrown around, we said, ‘We have a problem.’ Having moved from out of state, we had to educate ourselves.”

She said WastePro “didn’t make it any easier” by telling residents they could simply leave their garbage in bags at the curb, without being in a can. The company has since changed its policy and requires all garbage in the county be placed in trash cans.

Now Winemiller has not only educated herself, but is the official “BearWise ambassador” for her neighborhood, playing an important role in the second phase of the Urban/Suburban Bear Study.

The goal of the study when it started in 2014 was to look at the spatial ecology of black bears in Asheville by capturing bears within a 1-mile radius of the city, placing radio collars on them, which naturally fall off after a certain amount of time, then releasing them, while continuing to track the bears to gather data in order to inform future bear management decisions, said Jennifer Strules, an N.C. State doctoral student.

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Dr. Chris DePerno, professor in fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology program at N.C. State who oversees the work of Strules and doctoral candidate Nick Gould, is the study's co-lead with Wildlife Commission bear biologist Colleen Olfenbuttel. All agree the first phase of the study, which ended last year, was “a huge success.”

The second phase began in April with the objective to work with Asheville residents to become certified “BearWise” neighborhoods, Strules said.

The target neighborhoods are Haw Creek, also near the parkway in East Asheville, and Town Mountain, the two neighborhoods with the highest amount of bear activity in Asheville.

Preliminary bear findings

Between April 2014 and August 2018, researchers captured about 165 unique bears, and another 80 bears were recaptured over the four years, for a total of 245 bears captured on the project, according to Gould. The bears were captured only on private property, with the approval of landowners, as close to city limits as possible.

He said preliminary results showed that Asheville has a thriving black bear population that is quite at home within city limits.

Locations of the 83 dens associated with collared bears were distributed across the city, mostly northeast and southwest of Asheville. He said bears typically den between the third week in December and the third week in March, and on average, female dens were about 130 meters from a residence, while male bear dens were an average of 490 meters from a residence.

In Phase 2, with the “enthusiastic support” of more than 50 Asheville landowners, the bear study team trapped 70 bears from late April to early September, and met their goal of GPS-collaring 23 female bears, Strules said.

She said Phase 2 will continue with three years of field data collection from the collars, followed by one year to analyze the data. She anticipates results will be available in 2023.

“Other field work has included trash surveys in study neighborhoods to index bear activity, and conducting hard mast surveys and other field procedures to better understand the diet of suburban bears,” Strules said.

Another part of Phase 2 of the bear study was to recruit BearWise Communities.

"We look forward to continuing our work with recruiting neighborhoods to the BearWise program and learning more about Asheville’s resident bears for the betterment of all," Strules said.

Justin McVey, mountain region wildlife biologist for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, said Western North Carolina is home to an estimated 6,000-8,000 black bears. There are another 11,000-13,000 bears on the coast.

Hobbs said that bear managers from several Southeastern states recently met to share data and felt that this will be a good mast year in terms of acorns, a main source of food for bears.

“We’ve seen a decrease in conflict compared to last year — we did have a mast failure last year in WNC, and in some other Southeastern states,” she said.

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That will typically mean bears have a good natural food source and will be less likely to prowl backyards. Last year she said the wildlife commission received 769 calls about bears, from simply spotting a bear in their backyard to having one sleeping under their porch.

So far this year, McVey said the commission has received about 500 calls. He said people should call the wildlife commission only if a bear is injured or orphaned or is causing harm.

But it’s still early in the fall, so he expects more calls to come. Especially since bears know where the good stuff is.

Becoming ‘BearWise’

Hobbs said that the main focus of the bear study now is to get neighborhoods in Town Mountain and Haw Creek BearWise certified, meaning they follow the six BearWise principles.

“The main purpose is to keep humans and bears coexisting safely, keeping bears wild and keeping humans safe,” Hobbs said.

“It’s important because bears pick up these bad behaviors and they travel around with them. We’re giving them reasons to stick around with bird feeders or trash. Ideally we’d like to keep them moving through. We like them to be in our backyards, but we don’t want them to stick around.”

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There are four steps to becoming BearWise certified. If Mountain Meadows Phase 1 completes the process, it would be the first of its kind in the state, Hobbs said.

The first step is first is to meet with Hobbs or Strules to talk about a community’s bear issues. The two scientists met with several homeowners associations or informal neighborhood gatherings this summer to explain the program.

The second step is to get organized, often by getting the HOA involved, and then establishing a committee and an ambassador, or a point of contact, between the neighborhood and the wildlife commission, something Winemiller has already done, and secure several other volunteer committee members.

The final step — and perhaps the most difficult — is implementing the six BearWise basics.

Hobbs said it’s not true that a community has to have 100% percent of households involved to become certified and receive a plaque and continued support from the wildlife commission.

“Ideally we just want to get as many people as possible on board, whether it’s 20 or 50 percent, to come together to implement the BearWise basics,” she said.

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Hobbs said one of the biggest holdups in all the communities are people’s attachment to birds.

“People find ways to secure garbage cans, but when you ask them to take down bird feeders, even just seasonally, in the spring, summer and fall when bears are most active, that’s where we see a lot of resistance,” Hobbs said.

“Bird feeders are high calories. The bears can hit them up like a buffet, and they’re easily habituated. They have great memories. If they have been able to access that bird feeder once at your home, it’s very likely they will come back,” she said.

Hobbs said both Mountain Meadows communities are well on their way, and she is hoping to get some more buy-in from Haw Creek neighborhoods. She said she expects to announce the first BearWise certified communities by fall of 2020.

The committees serve as a central point for neighbors to report bear activity. The ambassadors can help mitigate issues and explain what is normal, or not normal, bear behavior. If there is activity that appears dangerous, they serve as the liaison to the wildlife commission.

“It helps people sum it up, find their own solutions in their own community,” she said.

Winemiller and her committee have already started the steps by putting out an email survey to the community to find out what its bear issues are. She said she will follow up by going door to door handing out door hangars and magnets listing the six BearWise principles, and they plan a newcomer’s packet with the information.

“We also need to address contractors and architects who come in to build and renovate new homes,” she said.

When Winemiller and her husband were renovating their home, the contractor had a dumpster sitting outside their home for two years. Not only did it contain construction debris, but fast food leftovers, a win for scavenging bears.

“We were clueless that that was an issue. When we moved in, the dumpster was gone, but we had become a food source, we were a target,” she said.

She said she knows the $300 for a bear-resistant trash can be cost-prohibitive for many people, but she said she wished WastePro had promoted the option more than it did. She had her can retrofitted to be bear-resistant, and also recommends people wait until the morning of garbage pickup to put out their trash.

Winemiller was also a big bird feeder when she first moved to Asheville. Now she only feeds them when bears are sleeping.

“We’re not saying don’t feed the birds, but do it seasonally when bears aren’t as active,” she said, which is December through March.

“It’s proven that if we provide less attractants, we have less bear activity. The more food mamas have, the more babies they have. It’s just dead calories,” she said.

“We owe it ourselves to help the wildlife to stay wild and eat the things they are supposed to eat and not things we’re unfortunately providing for them.”   

BearWise principles:

• Never feed or approach bears.
• Secure food, garbage and recycling.
• Remove bird feeders when bears are active.
• Never leave pet food outdoors.
• Clean and store grills.
• Alert neighbors to bear activity.