MONTICELLO - As Arkansans spend more time outdoors during the summer months, wildlife experts say residents may notice an increase in black bear sightings, but they emphasize that bears are generally wary of people and rarely pose a threat.
Although Arkansas experienced two tragic black bear attacks last fall — the first fatal attacks in more than a century — Don White, wildlife ecologist and bear expert with the Arkansas Forest Resources Center based at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, said such incidents are exceptionally uncommon for our state.
“Most bears are naturally afraid of people and will leave an area when they know a human is nearby,” said White, who is also the James White Endowed Professor of Wildlife Ecology at UAM. “Their sense of smell is incredibly acute, allowing them to detect us long before we know they are nearby. In most cases, bears quietly move away without ever being seen.”
White said that the lowest likelihood of encountering a bear occurs during winter when bears are typically denning. Sightings are more likely in the spring and fall simply because more people are outdoors in bear territory.
“When you plot the times of the year when black bear-human encounters take place, spring and fall come out on top,” White said. “These are also the times when people are most active in bear country. Whenever people and black bears occur in the same place at the same time, conflicts can occur, although those conflicts are remarkably rare in our state.”
Spring encounters are sometimes associated with female bears protecting young cubs, while fall conflicts are more often tied to food availability.
This time of year, Spencer Daniels with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said yearling males are often dispersing from their mother’s territory in search of a home range of their own.
“These young bears stayed the winter with their mother but were kicked out of her territory to start their lives on their own,” Daniels said. “They can travel very long di…