Image: mn_blk_bear

Minnesota is asking hunters to refrain from shooting bears that are outfitted with radio collars for scientific research. (Photo by Kelly vanDellen)

Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources is encouraging hunters to pass on shooting any collared bears that they see during this year’s bear season.

The DNR has outfitted 50 black bears with radio collars for scientific research. The agency says most of the collared bears are likely located in hunting zones 27, 45 or the no-quota zone. That includes around Camp Ripley and up to the Brainerd/Baxter area. All but three of the bears are female.

Officials are asking that hunters treat research bears as if they are off-limits, even though it is not illegal to take a collared bear. They say to check a bear’s ear for an ear tag before shooting it.

“We ask hunters to avoid shooting these research bears,” said Andrew Tri, Minnesota DNR bear research scientist. “These collared bears give us much of the data we use in bear management and are most valuable to us when they are collared for multiple years. Thank you to hunters who have opted not to take collared bears in past years and hunters who choose not to harvest collared bears this season.”

One area of research is to look at year-to-year changes in the bears’ natural food supplies and how those changes affect individual bears in terms of their habitat use, physical condition, denning, reproduction and interactions with humans. Since the research is seeking long-term data, tagging new bears every year to replace any killed cannot substitute for long-term info gathered on individual bears.

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The collars’ GPS units provide periodic coordinates of collared bears’ locations that are either uploaded to a satellite or stored in the collar. The DNR researchers download this data when they visit a bear in its den. Each bear provides several thousand data points per year.

All collared bears have large (3 x 2 inch), colorful ear tags so hunters can identify them in case the dark collars don’t show up against the fur. The tags can be seen easily on trail cameras or when a bear is at a bait. See examples of collared bears with ear tags and a summary of pertinent research findings online under the link “Importance of Radio-collared Bears” on the Minnesota DNR bear management webpage.

Since hunters may not be able to see a radio collar or ear tags in some situations, taking a bear with a radio collar is legal; however, waiting to get a clear view of the bear’s head can help reveal whether it has large ear tags, which indicates that it is collared.

A hunter who takes a collared bear is asked to look for a small, implanted heart monitor under the skin on the left side of the chest. This device looks like a small, silver capsule and contains valuable information stored in memory. The hunter is asked to submit the small device to DNR with the collar if found.

MDNR asks any hunter who shoots a collared or ear-tagged bear to call the Minnesota DNR Wildlife Research Office in Grand Rapids at 218-328-8879 or 218-328-8874 to report it and coordinate the pickup or drop-off of the collar and heart monitor, if applicable.

Bear hunting licenses are issued through a lottery system for Minnesota’s bear season, which runs from September 1 through October 12. Minnesota’s black bear population estimate ranges between 13,000 and 18,000 animals. The animals have been expanding their territory more south and west in recent years.