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All of my family, friends, and colleagues know that black bears are my favorite wildlife species. Not only are they my favorite, but I have been privileged to work with black bears first in West Texas at the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, and now in Coahuila, Mexico, in the Carmens. The black bear has struggled to survive in both Mexico and Texas. There are now small satellite populations beginning the recolonization process in western Texas, but it wasn’t always this way. Historically the American black bear occupied most of the ecological regions of Texas, the exception being the extreme southern portion of the state, although there have been sightings as far south as the Rio Grande Valley. As European colonization and settlement expanded, the black bear began to decline. Unregulated hunting, loss of habitat, and predator control all contributed to the extirpation of this species in Texas. As long ago as 1905, Vernon Bailey conducted his biological surveys and reported that black bear were restricted to the rugged mountains and canyons of western Texas, and along the river bottoms and pine woodlands of East Texas. A few bears were still being reported on the Edwards Plateau. In the 1940s, the last stronghold of the black bear in Texas was found in the rugged Trans-Pecos, mainly in the Davis, Chisos , Chinati, Caballo del Muerto, Sierra del Carmen, and Guadalupe Mountains. 25 Chihuahuan Desert Bears In the Shadow of the Carmens 148 Before the 1940s, traditional fall bear hunting in West Texas yielded a good harvest. One oldtimer in the Marathon area told me that in the 1930s, seven bears were killed during a single hunt in southeast Brewster County. An early attempt was made to protect the black bear in Texas in 1925 when the state legislature established a restricted hunting season, November 16 through December 31, with a bag limit of one bear per hunter per season. Bear hunting was then prohibited in all Texas counties in 1973 under the regulatory authority of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. In 1977, the department initiated a black bear project to evaluate habitat and to determine the actual status and distribution of black bears in Texas. In 1983, bear hunting was prohibited statewide. However, by this time, there were none left to hunt. An occasional bear would wander into West Texas, particularly in the Big Bend and Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, but they were not resident at this time. To the south in Mexico the black bear had not fared much better. In the 1950s only a remnant population was thought to remain in the remote mountains of northern Coahuila, particularly in the Sierra del Carmen/Maderas del Carmen, Serran ías del Burro, Sierra Encantada, and Sierra Santa Fé del Pino (R. Baker, pers. comm., 2007). It was during this time period that Mexican President Miguel Alemán (in office from 1946–1952) made his annual pilgrimage to the mountains of northern Coahuila for his traditional bear hunt. He didn’t see a bear, much less kill one. When he returned to Mexico City, he placed a moratorium on bear hunting throughout the country. This was the first protection that black bears in Mexico received . Many years later in 1986, the black bear was listed in Mexico as en peligro de extinción (endangered ). Texas followed suit in 1987. Currently the black bear is listed as endangered in Mexico, with the exception of a small area in the Serran ías del Burro where it is under “special protection ,” and Texas lists the black bear as a “state threatened species.” This brings us to the Carmen Mountain black bears, a subject near and dear to my heart. A researcher very seldom has the opportunity to study a species unhindered by politics, and the Carmen Mountain black bear study was no exception . One of the first things we identified in Coahuila was the need for information on life history parameters, including reproduction, density, survival , home range, diet, habitat use, dispersal patterns and avenues, seasonal movement in relation to food availability, and emigration into adjacent areas and egress from Texas and the surrounding Mexican mountains. Black bear predation on domestic livestock has become a major issue for a number of ranchers and ejidatarios (communal property owners) in several adjacent areas, and pressure to hunt the black bear to alleviate the problem is currently an issue. However , not all black bears kill livestock, and hunting [18.218.129.100] Project...

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