The Bear Facts
By Lyle Johnson, The Gonzales Weekly Citizen
We made a trip to Alaska this summer, and one of the expectations of just about everybody who visits there is to see a bear. The Grizzly bear usually tops of the list, but there are plenty of black bears there as well.
Bears are a top predator in the animal food chain, so along with their size and fear that they instill, this makes them a fascination to humans. We are scared of them, but something draws us to want to see them up close. To see a bear in Louisiana was not something one would even think about even a few years ago.
Here in Louisiana, the black bear once ranged throughout our state and parts of Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas. The black bear was common at the time of early colonization, serving as food both for Indians and white settlers.
More than 80 percent of prime Louisiana black bear habitat in the Mississippi River floodplain had been lost by the early 1990s, primarily due to clearing land for agriculture. Quality of the remaining habitat has been reduced by fragmentation and human activities.