Bay State bears thrive, starting to spread east
The Bay State’s black bear population is growing at an average rate of 8 percent per year, and though the vast majority live in central and western Massachusetts, a few are finding their way farther east, wildlife experts say.
The number has grown from only about 100 in the 1970s to about 4,500 today, primarily because areas that had been cleared of trees now have maturing forests, said Tom French, an assistant director at the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
“They’re increasing rapidly,” French told the Herald yesterday. “As that happens, their rate of spread speeds up.”
On Oct. 12, state environmental police received a report that a mother bear and her cub had been sighted at 5 p.m. the day before in Wompatuck State Park, which includes parts of Hingham, Cohasset, Norwell and Scituate, according to Katie Gronendyke, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Environmental police searched the park but found nothing, Gronendyke said.
“The bottom line is it could be a real bear,” French said, “but anything east of 495 in the Westboro area is uncommon.”
The eastern part of the black bear’s range in Massachusetts is eastern Worcester County, he said.
“But individual ones can roam much farther than that,” he said. “Young males disperse the farthest. Males and females stay with mom for about two years and mate when they’re about 3 or 4 years old. So they’re too young to be searching for mates yet. Right now, they’re looking for a place they can settle in where there are some bears, but not so many that there’s too much competition.”
The farthest east a black bear has been sighted in Massachusetts was in April 2013, when one was spotted for 17 days in Provincetown, French said.
“We darted him, put tags on him so we could identify him and moved him farther inland,” he said, a process they had to repeat when he turned up in a suburban area.
French stressed that there’s no reason to fear black bears. For proof, he said, people need look no farther than central and western Massachusetts, where most sightings don’t even raise an eyebrow because they’re so common and because the bears usually run away from humans.
If you do come across a black bear, French said, simply keep a “respectful distance” and don’t leave out food for them.