When we went hunting in Pacos County last year my nephew and his grandfather were in a stand and swear they saw one.

When my Dad was alive in the early 90's in Marion county, he called me one Sunday to tell me about the Black Bear that had come into the yard trying to get into the trash barrel. Dogs ran it off.

I saw that sign you posted the last time I was over there. The last time my son did the youth deer hunt for the refuge they spoke to us about those signs. It's a pretty steep fine for shooting a bear from what I understand....

I've got pics I'll have to dig them up.

Time to think about "bear" management. Let the population grow and spread a little. I'd enjoy telling the anti-hunters that hunter's fees helped re-introduce the black bear into Texas. Maybe in 7-10 years Texas can have a bear season. Obviously if they become a cattle nuisance then the cattle owners can protect their property. Just imagine our kids being able to hunt bear in the Honey Grove area!

SFA has done two research projects looking for bears in East Texas. One in Northeast Texas Cypress River North to the Red River got one genetic sample of a bear in Red River County near Negley in 2 years covering about 250,000 acres of good land. Pics were taken at 3 other locations in Negley, and there has been a pic along the Sulphur River east of Talco since then.

The other study is in Southeast TX Sabine River south/Neches river east/ down to Big Thicket area and is still in progress

Articles: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6565798.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20100614-Bears-make-return-to-East-Texas-2890.ece

TPWD doesn't plan on reintroducing bears. They are coming in on their own anyway. Population isn't known but source right now is probably Oklahoma for Red River County. According to Oklahoma officials they know of breeding females with in 20 miles of TX border which isn't that far for bears to travel.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/news_images/?g=black_bears

bottom 4 pics are from bear genetic sample taken of

Most bears are probably juvenile males that disperse widely from source populations. Females rarely stray far from where they were born unless food resources are scarce. There won't be a population till the females start moving in. So right now it will probably be immature males and young mature males. Bears can live to be up to 20+ years old. In the wild 10-15 is an old bear, and it's estimated most of the bears coming in though few are less than 5 years of age so most should be less than 250 lbs.

Here is TPWD's management plan for black bears and their management.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_pl_w7000_1046.pdf

I worked on the SFA bear project in NE TX that is why I know so much about this it was alot of fun.