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Bear 609 by Bill Stiver
A daring black bear, known for looting campsites and backpacks, has once again spooked researchers.
Bear 609, a black bear in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, had to move to another location to demonstrate “food-regulating behavior,” or what happens when it gets used to eating human food and garbage, according to the National Park. Bill Steiber, the park’s wildlife biologist, explained. park.
“We tried several things to keep her from moving in the first year,” Steiber said. , terrifying people, but she returned the following year, taking food from the ring of fire and challenging people for her backpack.
National Park Service personnel moved Bear 609 from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the Cherokee National Forest. She wore her GPS tracker before being released.
A view of the Cherokee National Forest from the west side of I-26 in Unicoy County, Tennessee on August 4, 2016. (Photo by Bryan Steffy/Getty Images)
From there, the bear “almost immediately” began moving south, trekking through Georgia and South Carolina before circling Asheville, North Carolina. She headed north from Asheville and re-entered the national park, eventually getting her within five to six miles of where she was caught on July 8th.
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“Frankly, I thought she would go back to where we caught her because a lot of bears do,” Steiber said. was 300 to 400 miles.”
Map showing Bear 609’s epic journey (Courtesy of Bill Stiver)
But Bear 609 hadn’t finished his journey yet. She turned south again and circled Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee for about 450-500 miles.
She was also seen hit by a car at a shopping mall in Alpharetta, Georgia. Yet she kept going, crossing major interstates and passing through urban areas.
“She never stopped moving,” Stiver said.
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Her pursuers now believe she has returned to Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest.
Stiver is one of the researchers in a three-year study tracking what happens when black bears move out of the park.
Why she traveled this far is still a mystery.
“While doing this research, we have seen several bears migrate very long distances, and this is by far the longest,” said Stiver.
Bear 609 is lucky. About two-thirds of bears that migrate die within four to five months, Stiver said. That’s why it’s so important to educate people about reducing human-bear conflict and preventing access to food and trash.
A black bear forages along the Tennessee state line on May 11, 2018 in Newfound Gap near Cherokee, North Carolina. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina border and lies in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains.
“When that happens, they’re obviously more susceptible to being run over by cars and more prone to being hunted,” Stiver said.
Bearwise.org is a great resource for learning what to do and not to do if you live in or reproduce in a bear-inhabited area, he said.
