Now that black bears have established themselves at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, the rangers and resource managers are working to keep the bears away from food (and from the people who bring the food) by installing systems to hang the food at five backcountry campsites. Rangers are also changing the regulations to require that all food be stored in park-approved bear-proof containers, and requiring that all backcountry campers store their food and thrash safely.
The food hanging systems use cable and pulleys in the trees to allow backcountry campers to hang their food out of reach. By keeping the food ten feet off the ground, and more than four feet away from the tree, only the most motivated and ingenious bears can find the proverbial “free lunch.”
The food hanging systems are being installed by Rick Varner, wildlife biologist, who has helped install them at almost all the backcountry campsites at Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It’s a simple matter to hook a backpack or food bag to the cable, and then haul it out of reach. By keeping the food away from the bears, the bears never learn to associate people with food.
Resource Management Chief Jennifer Beeler put it this way, “We have to protect the bears from the people, and the people from the bears. We can only do a little to teach the bears, but we can do a lot to teach the visitors how to protect the park’s largest animal.”
Bears who do learn to rummage for food in backpacks and coolers become a threat to visitors, and to themselves. They eat “easy” food that can make them sick, they learn to steal food instead of finding it in the wild, and in the process they become easy targets for humans. “Panhandler bears only live half as long as a truly wild bear. A bear will usually eat what is easiest, and not what is best,” Beeler said.
What’s more, the visitors (and their belongings) become victims when a bear has learned that it’s easier to eat a bag of potato chips than to claw through a log looking for grubs. The lure of easy calories then becomes a habit that leads the bear to search for humans and human food. “A bear will be attracted to food or garbage. You have to think about what smells good to a bear, and understand that they are as attracted to our trash as to our coolers. Make no mistake, garbage kills bears,” Beeler advised.
The park has had an ongoing study of the bear population, working with the University of Kentucky to study the number of bears and their movements. Another study currently underway actually uses samples of bear hair to study the DNA to learn the “family tree” for bears in the region. The information from these studies, combined with visitor reports of bear sightings or contracts, is part of the overall program to manage the park for both the visitors and the bears. If you have a bear sighting or contract, please contact Jenny Beeler at (606)246-1113 or jenny_beeler@nps.gov.
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