Sunday, January 27, 2002

Alaska bear makes its Ohio relatives look like small fry

By Matt Markey
Outdoors Columnist

There are not many good bear hunting stories that come from Ohio. But a dedicated hunter has passed along a tale from far away that is worth repeating. This story is about the biggest bear you can imagine.

A serviceman from the Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska was hunting recently on Hitchenbrook Island. This island sits in the Gulf of Alaska, east of the town of Seward and south of Valdez. The airman was hiking in to his hunting area when a brown bear stood up about 35 yards away from him.

This guy must have thought he had seen some kind of monster, or that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Because there was no logical explanation for that tower of fur and teeth and claws he was looking at. As soon as the bear saw the hunter, it dropped down and charged him.

The airman emptied his gun at the bruin as it closed in on him. The bear dropped just 10 yards away. The bear stood 12 feet and 6 inches tall, and weighed over 1,600 pounds. The bear's paw was as big as the airman's chest. It looked like an elephant with fur.

Hitchenbrook Island must be a pretty good place for a bear to live, because this was one huge bear. We can only assume it took an army to haul the thing out of the woods, and that is no knock on the Air Force.

The brown bear is the largest of the bears, and Alaska has the highest concentration of brown bears in the world. The grizzly is a member of the brown bear family, as is the Kodiak, Alaska's most infamous bear. Kodiak bears are a distinct subspecies that have slight variations in size and appearance that make them different from most brown bears.

The brown bear resembles its close relative, the black bear, which is beginning to re-establish itself in Ohio. The brown bear, however, is usually larger, has a more distinct shoulder hump, and longer, straighter claws. The brown bear is better adapted to dig up the burrows of small mammals, and to attaining the bursts of speed necessary to run down moose or caribou for food.

While color would appear to be the key to telling the two apart, color is not a reliable method for differentiating these bears because both species have many color phases. Black bears occur in many shades of brown, and even shades of blue and white. Brown bear colors range from dark brown through light blond.

Male black bears in Michigan weigh between 150 and 400 pounds, while some in Pennsylvania reach 600 pounds. Just before going into their dens to hibernate in the late fall, the brown bears of Alaska and the American west are loaded with fat and most mature males weigh between 500 and 900 pounds. The genetic exceptions, like the brown bear taken on Hitchenbrook Island, weigh in excess of 1,500 pounds.

Wildlife biologists say coastal bears in Alaska, like the huge bear taken by the airman from Elmendorf, grow larger because of their protein-rich diet that is heavy in salmon. Despite the daily dose of salmon, there must have been a Dairy Queen nearby for that bear to get that big.

Now you don't have to worry about any 12-foot bears in Ohio. But to the surprise of many, there is a resident population of black bears in the Buckeye State, and it appears to be growing. There were 66 bear sightings in Ohio in 2000, and that number will likely be significantly higher when the 2001 figures are released.

Black bears have wandered into Ohio from Pennsylvania and West Virginia over the years, but numerous sightings in the Buckeye State of sows with cubs give game officials a strong indication that resident populations exist. The majority of the black bear sightings have taken place in the counties on the Pennsylvania border in extreme Northeastern Ohio, and in the hill country of Southeastern Ohio.

But state wildlife officials have also received unconfirmed reports of bear sightings in nearby Erie and Crawford counties, and one from the Fostoria area. The game folks are quick to point out that it is unlikely these sightings involved bears, since the habitat in this part of the state is not suitable for bears, and it is not likely a bear could travel here from its range in northern Michigan or eastern Ohio and not be seen by numerous other folks along the way.

Our neighbors have a lot more bears than we do, because they have much better bear habitat. Pennsylvania is home to approximately 10,000 bears, while West Virginia has a population of 6,000 to 8,000 bears. Michigan has about 16,000 bears, but 90 percent of those live in the upper peninsula, and most of the remaining 10 percent live in the northern reaches of the lower peninsula.

Ohio's game biologists expect the bear numbers in our state to continue to rise, but that the population will remain concentrated in the forested areas in the eastern half of the state. It is expected to be a good number of years before a hunting season will be necessary to manage bear numbers in Ohio.

It is still safe to go for a walk in the woods in Northwest Ohio, and not fear an encounter with lions, tigers or bears. The monster bear from Hitchenbrook Island would never live here and could never live here. If you drive through the forested areas of Ohio, there is a slim chance you might see a bear, but compared to the brown bears of Alaska, these Buckeye bears look a lot more like rottweilers.