I grew up there in the southern Ozarks and only saw one in all the years I was out hunting, camping, fishing, etc. They'd been almost all shot out at that time. Now through reintroduction by Ark. Game & Fish, there are over 3,000 Black bears in Arkansas. They have a hunting season on them.

https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/FSA-9087.pdf

Any Arkansas hunters here ever killed one?

L.W.

I will soon (hopefully) be in Arkansas, and I'd love to just see bears.

There are reports of mountain lions remaining there too.... it's possible, I suppose.

Sometimes those Arkansas and Oklahoma bears wonder into NE Texas where I live but they don't stay long. They are usually young male bears and until a female locates here they won't stay.

We have a hunting season on Black Bears in OK too.

Like coyotes, fishers, and a bunch of other stuff. They were exterminated for a reason. I promise you that the novelty wears off, and fast.

For me the “novelty” never wears off. I prefer living in places that are still wild enough for top tier predators to thrive. I’d rather share the space with animals rather than humans. I’m used to bear, cougar, wolves, etc….. they’re easier to teach and manage compared to people…they’re also less dangerous and more predictable than people. The novelty of living in the country has not gotten old yet and I’m trying to get to get something built in much more “wild” environs with far more animals than people. 👍

What's the date on that publication? The population pushes 6,000 now. Have had bear hunting for about 40 years now. Growing up in Arkansas in the 70s, they were here but rare. Now they are almost anywhere within the state. Hunting season is concurrent with deer season. No spring hunting though.

The last confirmed wild red wolf in Arkansas was in the early 70s. No coyotes back then at all. Now we are overrun with coyotes.

I'm in north central Arkansas, LOTS of old growth woods.

Sylamore 30 miles south is a good size WMA. I had two game cams running from mid summer into Bow season and didn't see much of anything. VERY FEW DEER, no bears, rarely see a coyote/bobcat/fox track.

Someone traps the hades out of the place, I see the orange flags and the sets spaced out about every 300ish yards.
More often than not there's a dirt-road about every 1/4 mile, that goes maybe a mile then connects to another dirt-road.
Did see some hog sign here and there.

Same story west of here Bull Shoals area, but only left game cams out 2 or 3 weeks.

Spent a lot of time scouting the places out my first year here >june 2020 and enjoyed it, but there isn't much for deer in old growth areas, and never saw a bear or bear track.
Last year I didn't hunt at all and I doubt I'll hunt this year.

Kodiak Island, I pulled the article up again but could not find a publication date on it. Now up to 6,000 Black bears?! That's a lot of bruins. Maybe if I were still there I'd be able to see more than the one I saw around 1950.

Ol' Mike, you must live close to where I grew up: Mountain Home. BTW, I and my buddies have camped in the Sylamore Forest a number of times. Beautiful country.

L.W.

It's fun to see them, but hunting them is actually a let down. You can bait on private property, but most are killed by deer hunters from a stand. No spring season. Very little opportunity for spot and stalk type hunting. I still go out west most springs for bear hunting. Was in Idaho this year in the Lolo area, but got there a week or so too earlier and all I saw was snow.

We have a bear season in the Missouri Ozark's now also. Elk too. We are covered up in hogs. And going on 90 something confirmed mountain lion sightings to the point that hearing of a confirmed lion sighting isn't big news any more. Where I am I see elk, hogs and the occasional bear. Here is a Missouri Ozark bear...




This bear climbed into a hog trap to get a pork chop for dinner...



Damn hogs...



I put the sneak on this rag horn 4x5 elk and got to 25 yards. It was super windy that day and this bull was busy feeding on acorns.

KodiakIsland,

Howdy.
My younger brother and I were travelling back to Ohio from Houston area to visit friends and Grandparents and saw a wolf in 1979. We were about 150 miles out of Texarkana, don't remember the country highway.

Broad daylight, I was driving and saw it going under a barbwire fence crossing in front of us 200 yards ahead.
Brother was dozing off, I said look at that wolf, his exact words were 'it is a wolf'. It crossed into another field stopped and gazed back at us as we had nearly come to a stop.
I'll never forget it.

There's an ol timey Youtube video of Missouri, the coon/fox hunters speak of their dogs chasing a wolf from time to time.

A Missouri guy on Long Range Hunting sites says there are definately a few wolves in Missouri.
I'm a believer in peoples wolf sightings< I also saw a wolf in Florida.

Saw and photographed wold tracks in deep SW Idaho in 2008-2009.
I measured the distance via google earth from the SW Idaho corner to California's NE corner, just over a couple hundred miles.
I proclaimed there were wolves already in California because and old ranch-hand I got to know down there told he had seen wolves all over that region for years.
Over.

Nathan, the reason the Black bears were shot out in Arkansas was back before the Civil War, there was an huge market for bear oil, a fine lubricant, cooking oil, lamps, and many other uses. Hunters in Arkansas killed bears by the ton and rendered the fat, in a tiny town that sprung up on the White River, named "Oil Trough." The rendered oil flowed through troughs into wooden barrels and were loaded onto boats and floated downriver to the Mississippi River. There, north and south in steamboats to various markets that sold the bear oil. Over the years, the bear oil hunters really decimated the bears, and then the market for bear oil fell apart.

Oil Trough is still there and I think the census I saw listed a population of 280 people. It is about 30 miles s.e. of Batesville on the White River.

FWIW.

L.W.

I fly over the southwest corner of Missouri quite a bit and can usually pick up an elk herd near an old olympic training center. Have to circle a bit but can almost always find 10-20 of them.

Yep, Sylamore is a beautiful place, the whole region is.

I'm moving back to Idaho, maybe soon, >Challis.

They know not to mess with Texan hunters.

3,000? Maybe in one county. There are so many bears they are damned nuisance. There are some cats too. I’m pretty sure I saw one in February of 2006. It was about a quarter of a mile away and it got out of there in a hurry, but when it turned I could see the long tail. As for wolves, I don’t know. Maybe red wolves. But those aren’t that different than coyotes anyway.

I have hunted for bears in the.Ozark National Forest and in Sylamore. It is no problem finding sign in either place. I saw 2 while hunting never shot one.
The place I hunt now is private in N Central AR and we have bears travel through our place. Had Pictures of 3 different bears last year The smallest one was killed on a place that joins us by a bowhunter. We have had a large male the last 2 years. I may try to bait him this year. Problem is he usually leaves before season. I live 70 miles east of the place I hunt and people are starting to see bears regularly where I live.
Our game and fish commission denies there are Mt Lions in AR but I have seen one for certain cross the highway in front of me and know several people that have seen them too.

There is no bear season in Louisiana, but when I was a young chap, there was a couple of parishes in S. La. that had a bear season. That season was done away with sometime around the mid '60's, IIRC.

There is a proposal to start a bear season again, but I doubt it will go anywhere.

I live in the Ozarks in Arkansas. Bear are a nuisance here. You have to hang deer feeders from trees. They tear everything else up. Yep. Gardens are really taking a hit right now. We have the big cats also. Not anywhere close to the bear population though. Lots of pet food comes up missing. Folks put out cameras and there is Yogi lapping up whatever is in a feed bowl. It's fun seeing them cross roads I guess.

I’m in northern LA, just below the AR line. Bears suck for us deer hunters. Overgrown raccoons that live to tear up stuff. Constant nuisance.

have them here in South Texas, been migrating north out of Mexico for years.

Having a big black bear population isn't a good thing. New Jersey has the highest population density of bears of any state. They are a problem here. Our commie governor has cancelled the annual bear hunt this year. Last year it was allowed on private property. I live 20 miles from NYC and we have them in my town. In 2016 a buddy shot a big boar - 679.5 lbs. field dressed - a few miles from where I sit. I remember reading an article in a local newspaper about a bear breaking into a parked pickup truck which had groceries inside. A hiker was killed in a state park up-county from my town a couple of years ago.

We also have plenty of coyotes and verified cougar sightings. However, the worst animal invasion of all is New Yorkers escaping NYC to the NJ suburbs.

I can guarantee there are currently at 2 Mountain Lions in Greene County Ark., our family has been on Crowley Ridge since the early 1930’s. We don’t see them often, but once or twice a decade we see them. I suppose we could actually spend dedicated time to dig deeper into the subject and gain more insight on them however the only interaction we’ve had was a screaming fit by an adult lion as we walked past a multiple sighting area at the mouth of a densely vegetated draw. It definitely gets your attention, both color variations have been observed and photographed. No predation we are aware of, we have the livestock found on most family farms. Absolutely beautiful animals and for the most part understand their hiarchy on the food chain, no bears to mention at least from our place in Greene county.

Color variations?

The Arkies have been migrating north into Missouri too. Missouri had its first season last year, 5 or 10 tags issued. The state killed one a few miles west of my house last year that had became a nuisance. See more media reports of sightings with pictures. Buddy saw one get hit and killed on the south edge of Springfield, MO last year on the highway.

Missouris population is 800 and growing at 9% a year they believe. Any Facebook post the conservation department puts up about hunting them brings out the Karen’s in full force.

Here in Louisiana, they a PITA they tear up everything our deer herd is shrinking didn't see many young yearlings last season they probably killing the fawns. I wish they would disappear.

JPro, they are not many up here where I live, but they tell me the Ouachita River bottom and around the Union Game Reserve, there are plenty. I guess hunting around Pace Brown, you have got a problem. I got a friend that lives about 2 miles, as a crow flies, and he got a pic of one on a game camera last fall.

MS game and fish has been turning them out.


i haven’t seen one in person, but have seen game cam pic sof them in the area.

Folks call them “honey bears”. Small’ish. Black bears??

There is a place for bears....but it is not MY place.

If they stay in the Mark Twain or Caney Mountain Refuge, no problem.

We don't like them tearing up stuff and killing/scattering livestock.

Yup...giant 'coons.

I saw a black bear run over on I-20 east of Monroe, LA four or five years ago. Waze even said “dead animal on road” as I got closer I though it was a big dog like a pitbull and then realized that it was a young black bear as we passed.

Black bears are prevalent all over WA state. Never hear of too many problems with them. They’ll tear schit up on occasion but seemingly far less then elk.

They can be hard on fawns and calves. Still tons of deer and elk though.

They cancelled the spring bear season this year. It’ll be interesting to see if it has any impact on bear and other wildlife populations. I have my doubts.

I did a quick search to see what the latest bear numbers are in AR. I didn't come up with much. The largest estimate I found was 4000 but it wasn't dated. I really wish all articles were dated but the majority aren't so they're meaningless. I did find one interesting number on the AR Fish and Game site - in 2021 hunters killed 577 bears in AR. That's an increase of 100 over 2020.

I did find some other interesting numbers. In the lower 48, there are 5 states with populations in the 20 to 30k range. In the east, the only state with those numbers is ME. In the west, it's close to a tie between WA, OR, CA, and ID. Of course AK has a lot more, around 100k but it's a lot larger. For bears/sq mile, in the west WA, OR, and ID lead the way, exceeding both CA and AK. All 3 of the leading states have huge treeless areas with no bears at all so they're concentrated in the forested areas.

Didn't know bears were scarce in Missouri - I saw one on Fort Leonard Wood, summer of 1973.
Didn't think much of it, at the time.

I think they’ve been here all along, just very few though. The last 10 or 15 years though the numbers are increasing and sightings increasing. Primarily all in the southern 1/3 of the state, The Mark Twain Forest.

I have seen several around the Mt.Hersey .

We had pics of one 4 or 5 years ago that had an ear tag. Our game warden did some research for us and it was a female that was trapped near Springfield, MO and had been released in Mark Twain just North of us.

Haven't seen one on the property yet, but the neighbors have seen them in the area. West of Little Rock out in the country.

There are plenty of bears on the white river refuge in SE Arkansas. I’ve seen several while squirrel hunting.

Many squirrels in the old growth stuff? If so, fox or cat squirrels?