Alabama State Mammal: The Black Bear

Nature, State Animals 3 Minutes

Black bears are native to Alabama. When the state joined the Union in 1819, they could be found in every corner of the Yellowhammer state. “Their demise occurred more than a century ago due to over harvesting and habitat manipulation,” Hannah Leeper, a bear researcher at Auburn University told us. As a result, the state hosts the smallest and most fragmented black bear populations in North America.

In 2006, the plight of the Mobile black bears was amplified by Escambia County students, who campaigned to have the bears designated our state mammal. On April 12th of that year, Governor Bob Riley signed a law making the black bear our official state mammal. 

That act elevated the bear’s significance.

In the 2010s a second population of bears was discovered in DeKalb and Cherokee counties in Northeast Alabama. This is a game-changer. These bears are recolonizing from the north Georgia bear population. Early research studies of these bears are encouraging. The mothers are producing larger-than-usual litters and the cubs are healthy, like our four cubs.

In 2014, the state of Alabama secured federal funding that focuses on species at risk. ‘State Wildlife’ grants will fund black bear research in partnership with Auburn University until 2024 and hopefully beyond.

“We are just learning how black bears behave in Alabama,” stated Traci Woods, Habitat and Species Conservation Coordinator with the Department of Conservation. “Why is their population growing or not growing? What is contributing to their survival or mortality? We are just now getting good population estimates and information on how they are moving.”

Alabama’s black bears go by two nicknames. Berry bears or honey bears.  And yes, they are kin to the most famous bear of them all—Winnie the Pooh.

When Beth Sewell, an educator at the JSU Field School asks students to describe the size of our bears, they have an image of big 600 to 1000 pound menacing grizzly or brown bear from out West. She has to assure them our black bears are much smaller, with a kinder temperament.

For example, female black bears in Alabama weigh 125-135 pounds. Males are about twice that, the size of an Auburn University linebacker. 

They are omnivores. Their diet? Pretty much anything a racoon would eat—insects, roots, berries, acorns and other nuts, mushrooms, grasses and other plant materials, as well as small mammals such as mice and ground squirrels, fish, crayfish, and of course rubbish left by humans in trash cans and campsites.  Vegetation normally makes up over 80 percent of their diet.

North Alabama bears now have a viable population.

Bears generally avoid humans. 

Virtually all the dens located in south Alabama were ‘nests,’ very similar to the nests that birds build. 

North Alabama bears mostly utilize wind rows and rock outcrops.

North Alabama population is estimated at 35-50. North Alabama population is growing. These bears have a good genetic influence, have quality denning habitat and larger tracts of unfragmented land with suitable habitat. The northern population could triple within the next 5 years.

The state expects Birmingham will see more sightings of male bears roaming in the summer months, not necessarily establishing a population. Be mindful. Male bears go on walkabouts that may extend a hundred miles from dens in North Alabama. 

The people of Birmingham are going to have to adapt to that and live with it 20 years down the road.

Are we going to see moms and cubs? Very unlikely.  Hannah Leeper’s research indicates the bears in the Northeast are moving very slowly southward. She does not expect the bears to take up permanent residence anywhere near Birmingham because of the poor habitat—not enough unbroken forests and people around. 

JSU’s Sewell concluded:

‘Bears are the state mammal for a reason. They were here first. The fact that they are naturally returning is almost a miracle. Welcome the bears—they should be revered as a sacred species. They are beautiful.”

SOURCE: BHAMNOW.COM

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Published by pat frederick

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154 thoughts on “Alabama State Mammal: The Black Bear”

      1. he had the surgery earlier in december i think.
        then later he had complications–sever abdominal pain…fluid surrounding his lower intestines…not sure i want to know all the details…but the “secret part” was the complications supposedly

        Liked by 1 person

  5. A significant update:

    There’s something potentially more damaging in the release of Wade’s billing records. It turns out that he has submitted false records. In one invoice, Wade billed Fulton County for 24 hours of work (billed at $250/hour) on November 5, 2021.

    Needless to say, Wade didn’t work 24 in one day. It doesn’t happen; it’s physically impossible. This is a violation of Georgia’s false statement statute, Ga. Code Ann. § 16-10-20, which states:

    A person who knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; makes a false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or makes or uses any false writing or document, knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of state government or of the government of any county, city, or other political subdivision of this state shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000.00 or by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years, or both.

    This is a felony. Ironically, a number of defendants in the Trump, et al. case are facing charges under the very same statute.
    https://technofog.substack.com/p/fulton-county-da-fani-willis-her

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Snowfall 1 hour NE of me at Jackson, NE was 11.5″…..7.5″ about the same distance to my west. I reckon that leaves us at about the 10″ mark or thereabouts. Light snow chances into the week-end and much colder temps. Yep, it’s winter in Nebraska!!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. does anyone have any theories about this?
      i read the city (?) wanted to fill the tunnel in with concrete and they were trying to stop it?
      the city said the tunnel was making the building unstable

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Yes, they wanted to fill it. The young men were allegedly trying to reach an old women’s bath house that was supposedly there and conducting ceremonies in the tunnel – what ceremonies, I haven’t the foggiest but why the mattresses??? They are one of the more rigid sects of Jews…Hassidic, or something like that.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. “The Stars are Aligning”
    CLANDESTINE
    JAN 9, 2024

    “Many have asked: Why didn’t Trump arrest the Clintons for their involvement with Epstein in his first term? In short. The public were not ready.

    Remember what it was like back then? A large chunk of the public were still under the MSM spell and believed Trump was a Russian spy. The MSM had firm control of the narrative/public perception, and the public were heavily brainwashed to hate Trump and his followers. They had the world convinced Trump was a deranged dictator.

    Just imagine if in 2017, Trump barged in and arrested the Clintons and exposed Bill as a pedo. It would have started a civil war. Legitimately. Mass civil uprisings. The MSM would have said it was a lie and been calling for Americans to storm the White House because Trump is a dictator arresting his political opponents. Mass civilian casualties. Breakdown of society. Direct threat to NATSEC and opens susceptibility to foreign attacks. It would have been ugly.

    If Trump would have arrested the Clintons back then, it would not have worked. But this time around, we hold all the cards:

    – We have control of the narrative via the rise of independent/citizen journalism.

    – The public have spent the last 7 years watching nearly every “conspiracy theory” come true, and witnessed continuous examples of massive corruption in the media and government.

    – This information is coming out while Trump is not POTUS, so they cannot say that it is partisan or disinformation.

    – Trump has the political ammunition and the precedent established to go after the Deep State since they weaponized the government to go after him.

    The stars are aligning. The public will be ready this time around. We’ve woken enough normies, and a whole bunch more are about to be hopping aboard the bandwagon. We could actually pull this off.”

    Liked by 1 person

  10. “Why Aaron Rodgers Is Still Furious About COVID”
    THE VIGILANT FOX
    JAN 9, 2024
    (Video)

    Transcript:

    • “They locked everybody up forever — was supposed to be a couple of weeks.”
    • “Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed and never opened again.”
    • “The wealth gap got even bigger from the haves and have-nots.”
    • “They lied to us over and over.”
    • “They vilified early treatments.”
    • “They censored legitimate doctors in the space like Dr. Peter McCullough, Pierre Kory, and Robert Malone.”
    • “They were arresting people who were surfing in California; they closed the beaches.”
    • They told us to “stay inside and wait for this vaccine, which is 100% safe and effective.”
    • “They increased the mental health issues exponentially; the rates of suicide went way up.”

    “There’s no NFL owners who are mad about this,” Rodgers said. “Maybe we could have stopped this with early treatments, or not given Remdesivir and the ventilator to these patients.”

    Shout-out to MythinformedMKE for pulling this clip. Are you still mad about COVID?”

    https://vigilantfox.substack.com/p/why-aaron-rodgers-is-still-furious

    Liked by 1 person

  11. “The Washington Post is collapsing, and only Donald Trump can save them—Jeff Bezos’s prized paper is losing $100 million a year.”
    JORDAN SCHACHTEL
    JAN 9, 2024

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “There’s only one man who can save the jobs of the corporate and institutional stenographers who work for The Washington Post, and it’s not who they think it is. A fascinating article from Puck News has documented the ongoing collapse of The Washington Post. Here’s the too long; didn’t read summary of the paywalled article:

    — The Washington Post is now losing $100 million a year.
    — During the Trump era, subscriptions were growing 50 percent year over year. Today, The Post is churning paid subscribers at a catastrophic rate.
    — Four years ago, The Post averaged 139 million monthly visitors. At the end of 2023, that number was down to under 60 million, according to insiders.

    Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million, and he immediately proceeded to invest significant amounts of capital into the newsroom. Most of the corporate press credits Bezos with turning around Washington D.C.’s historic institutional paper, but that’s not what really happened.

    Despite staffing up (doubling the newsroom roster), subscriber growth was pretty flat until the Trump era. Bezos timed the market quite well. He was merely lucky enough to catch the tailwinds brought forth by Trump’s ascendancy to 1600 Penn.

    It wasn’t that The Washington Post was suddenly producing a good product. No, it was the Blue Anon Russian collusion fantasies and the like that filled the front page each and every day. That’s what really captured the attention of the Beltway WaPo faithful. Suddenly, The Post became a must-read, spinning fairytale after fairytale of a Bad Orange Man who threatened to capsize all of their supposedly righteous institutions.

    In 2017, with a headcount surging to over 3000 employees, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” became the new slogan for the newspaper, positioning The Post as the antithesis to the comic book villain they had spawned. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that The Washington Post positioned themselves as the apparent defenders of democracy, while labeling Trump as the fascist authoritarian dissolver of norms. He was a man who could do no right, but a man who served to drive subscriptions through the roof.

    Now, fast forward to today. The “bad guy” has been defeated by the “democracy defenders,” and there’s a cadaver in the White House. But now, their sales team can’t get anyone to sign up for The Washington Post. That’s because their grand antagonist is no longer the center of attention in Washington. In the meantime, Jeff Bezos is slashing hundreds of jobs in a desperate ploy to turn the margins around.

    Paradoxically enough, the progressive corporate drones who work at The Washington Post may only have one man standing in the way of their imminent unemployment. And that man isn’t Jeff Bezos.

    It’s Donald Trump. They need their “Bad Orange Man” back.”

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  14. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

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