Black Bear Trapping in Louisiana | Biology

Me displaying the large blaze on the first bear we caught

     A dream of mine came true the other day. Something I have wanted to do my whole life since I was 9 years old watching shows with Casey Anderson and Steve Irwin and many other talented science communicators. I remember watching on TV shows about trapping animals- mostly I remember tranquilizing cougars who were tracked by dogs up a mountain in the snow where biologists would "work them up" a science term for just collecting samples and data. 

    Well, on Tuesday I got the chance I had been dreaming of. I got invited to experience and help with trapping Louisiana Black Bears with the state bear biologists. I had to wake up early and meet up with the biologist who was driving me out to the site. The site was located in the Tensas River Basin area in a pecan orchard. In the Fall, bears go through what is called hyperphagia- a fancy Latin term for excessive eating, so a pecan orchard, which is full of a high calorie food source, is a perfect place to set traps. Traps are called culvert traps, just a large metal culvert with a spring set door. The culvert has one end with metal caging to see the bear inside and the other is a lift door made entirely of metal, which is the part that slides down to trap the bear inside. Around the sides of the trap is small holes about the size of a half dollar coin. These holes are used to insert a jab pole to sedate the bear safely. The trap is baited with sweet high calorie food like doughnuts or cake and a sweet scent like raspberry or molasses is sprayed as well.  

                                    Sedated bear

    When we got to the orchard a large male was wondering around eating, his estimated weight was around 450 pounds or 204 kilograms. We went up to the first culvert trap and there was a large, 250 pound female inside. She was born in 2014 and first collared in 2018. She had a distinct white chest blaze. I was informed by a biologist that she was the bear filmed on "America the Beautiful" who carried her cubs one by one through the swampy water in a bayou to get to a new place. It took a few tries to sedate her- she had been trapped a lot and knew the process and tried hard to not go down. After she was down we brought her out on a mat to help regulate her body temperature and got to work. She was already collared, marked and we had all her information so we just changed out her collar since hers was about to rot off. Many collars placed on wild animals have a piece of leather designed to rot off after a while, fall off and give a mortality signal so the biologists can recover that collar. On this bear I was allowed to give her the medication to wake up, and after 7-8 minutes she started wiggling her ears and promptly got up and ran into the brush. 

                                Me working up the bear

    The next bear we caught was a smaller female around 125 pounds. She was likely a yearling. She was not yet documented so this bear required a lot more work but- even still- it took less than 45 minutes. To work up a bear you have to:

• Check for PIT tags and other identifiers
• Take an ear sample biopsy
• Insert the ear tags
• Insert a PIT tag in the skin
• Take hair samples
• Pull a lower premolar tooth for cementum annuli to tell age (this is done only once in a bears life)
• Give the bear an identification tattoo in the upper lip 
• Put a new collar on her
• Fill out appropriate captured bear paperwork while the bear is "worked up"
• Wake her up with 2 medications

*Everything in purple I got to do or directly got to help with. 

When the bear woke up in 7-8 minutes, she tried for a second to get the collar off since it was new to her and after that she ran off into the brush. 

    The next trap that was set had an issue with the trigger so it did not catch any bears even though there was at least 2 bears that went inside the trap. That wrapped up bear trapping and collaring. After that, the biologists were kind enough to drive me around and look for more big fat bears. It was fun driving in a convoy with are binoculars out, like something out of a movie. We found a few and watched them from the road and a fields edge, but I had to get to class for a test so we left out little adventure. 

    I learned so much that day and honestly can't give enough credit to the professionality of the biologists and the knowledge and care they have for the bears. They were so through when teaching me and very patient as I am learning. To be included in something like this was a pinnacle in my life and just stirred up by passion even more to be a large carnivore biologist. 

The Bible verse I had chosen for this blog is short but very much to the point. "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." -Psalm 37:4 

Trapping bears has been a desire of my heart since I was very young, not just bears but all large carnivores. I am not sure why but the feeling of being so close to an apex predator to help their populations and contribute to science is just the coolest to me. God knew, he saw me in front of the TV when I was little and provided this for me. I feel like I am here in Louisiana to do this. 

-Nichole 🐻