Arkansas reclaims its status as the Bear State

OZARK NATIONAL FOREST, Ark. -- The bear cub remained unseen among the barren trees and dried leaves blanketing the forest floor, but she could be heard.

Heavy wheezes like those of a child with asthma grew louder as a pair of state wildlife officials drew closer to the small bluff. In the shadow of a rock outcropping, the coat of a black bear shone slightly in the gray light of the morning.

Myron Means, a bear biologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, loaded a large tranquilizer dart into an air rifle — after attaching a pink fabric tail so he could later find the injection site. He took aim at the nursing mother bear, who only stared back as he pulled the trigger.

Slowly, the drugs from the pink boutonniere took effect and the mother drifted into unconsciousness, allowing the wildlife officials to place a radio collar around her neck and pull away her still-suckling cub.

Such examinations are performed all winter at dens throughout Arkansas' Ouachita and Ozark mountains — where less than a century ago black bears were nearly killed off. In the 1950s, state officials launched a novel program capturing bears in Minnesota and Manitoba in baited 50-gallon drum traps and driving them by pickup to Arkansas.

Now, more than 4,000 black bears roam the region and hunting, which nearly brought the bears' demise, once again takes place in what was known as the Bear State.

"We have brought back the bear," Means said.

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When Arkansas existed only as a territory, newspaper accounts sold hunters and thrill-seekers on the idea of coming to the region for hunting. The prairies of east Arkansas filled each winter with ducks while deer remained plentiful in the woods. But black bears — Ursus americanus to scientists — captured the imagination of many in tales describing Arkansas as a rugged wilderness.

"There was this mystique about the big, black bears that lived in Arkansas," said Kimberly Smith, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and a former ex-officio Game and Fish Commission member.