WildAID are now
in Kashmir to motivate the public to prevent cruelty to animals and
to promote animal welfare and conservation policies that advance the
well being of both animal and people. Small, but effective, seeking
to prevent further destruction of Kashmir's Wildlife and its habitat
and level the playing field by infusing resources and broad-based
support into campaigns to protect wildlife, captive-held animals,
and biodiversity wildlife rescue and rehabilitation.
WildAID Kashmir esro Kashmir Chapter sharing a vision of a world
where wildlife and wild places are truly protected.
SPECIES SPECIFIC CONSERVATION PROG.
BLACK BEAR
An Elusive adaptable
carnivores
Kashmir BLACK BEAR FACTS
Ecology
Bears are one of the world’s
most adaptable carnivores. Their reasoning ability, long-term
memory, omnivorous food habits, dexterity, speed, strength,
sense of smell, and elusive behavior contribute to their success
through evolutionary time.
Kashmir black bears are black with a brown muzzle, some with a
distinct white "blaze" on their chest. Adult males generally
weigh from 150 to 350 pounds, and adult females range from 120
to over 250 pounds. Body length of adults, nose to tail, ranges
up to 6 feet.
Female black bears become sexually mature at 3 to 5 years of age
and have 1 to 5 cubs every other year. The young remain with
their mother the first year, den with her the following winter,
and search for their own territory in their second summer.
Bears tend to range over large areas in search of basic needs
such as food, escape cover, den sites, and mates. Males have an
average range of 20,000 acres while females usually maintain
home ranges of roughly 5,000 acres.
Although classified as carnivores, black bears are not active
predators. They are opportunistic feeders and will eat almost
anything that is available. Natural foods, such as berries and
acorns, comprise a majority of a bear's diet, but bears readily
take advantage of food options provided by agricultural crops
such as corn, wheat, oats, and sugarcane, occasionally damage
beehives in search of honey, and will readily become habituated
to human garbage when the opportunity exists.
Black bears are very intelligent, shy and secretive animals, and
generally work hard at avoiding contact with humans. Dangerous
situations may occur whenever close human activity is perceived
as threatening to the bear or its cubs. The best advice is for
humans to avoid close bear encounters.
Food Habits
Classified as a carnivore
(i.e., meat-eating animal) by taxonomists, black bears are not
usually active predators and rarely prey on vertebrate animals.
There are many stories of bears feeding on nutria and other
furbearers caught in traps during the days when fur trapping was
a viable vocation. There have been no reports of black bears
preying on livestock or pets in recent history. Bears are better
described as opportunistic feeders as they eat almost anything
that is available, thus they are more typically omnivorous.
The growth rate, maximum size, breeding age, litter size, and
cub survival of black bears are all linked to nutrition. Bears
spend a considerable amount of time foraging for food, using
their keen sense of smell to locate food sources. Feeding signs
are usually evident in areas of bear activity, including torn
logs, broken saplings, clawed trees, and trampled food plants.
Bears utilize all levels of the forest for feeding; from the
forest floor to the treetops. Excellent climbers, they can
gather foods from treetops and vines.
After emerging from dens in spring, bears may initially be in a
“semi-fasting” state as they continue to utilize remaining fat
reserves. Food is relatively scarce during this period and
weight loss is often more rapid than during denning. Succulent
vegetation is first utilized for food and then foods such as
residual hard mast (acorns, pecans, etc.), agricultural crops,
and insects are consumed. With the arrival of summer, soft mast
including dewberries, blackberries, wild grapes, elderberry,
persimmon, pokeweed, devil’s walking stick, thistle, and
palmetto will become staples in the diet. In the fall, hard
mast, such as acorns and pecans, is a particularly important fat
and carbohydrate-rich food source that provides the fat reserves
necessary for bears to enter the denning period in proper
health. Bears exhibit their most rapid weight gain during fall,
thus, hard mast is considered a critical food source at this
time.
Agricultural crops supplement natural foods and can be very
important food sources throughout the year, especially in areas
of extremely fragmented habitat and high bear density. Bears
will readily take advantage of food opportunities provided by
man. Besides crops from both commercial and residential
plantings, bears can get into trouble for getting into garbage
and pet foods. In areas where bears are present, it is important
for measures to be taken to prevent access to these tempting
foods.
Habitat Requirements
Louisiana black bears that
exist today do so primarily in relatively large contiguous areas
of bottomland hardwood habitat. The ingredients of prime black
bear habitat include escape cover, dispersal corridors, abundant
and diverse natural foods, water, and den sites. Because bears
are adaptable, habitat generalists, a well-managed, productive
forest can reliably provide the essentials of good black bear
habitat.
High quality escape cover is especially critical for bears that
live in fragmented habitats and in close proximity to humans.
Black bears are adaptable and can thrive if afforded areas of
retreat that ensure little chance of close contact or visual
encounters with humans.
Black bears in the region are
normally black with a brown muzzle and an occasional white blaze
on the chest. Average body weights are 150 to 350 pounds for
adult males and 120 to 250 for adult females. The largest
Louisiana black bear weight taken in recent years was a 540 lbs
male from the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). Body
lengths range from 3 to 6 feet from nose to their short tail.
Size typically varies depending on the quality and quantity of
available food.
Why is the Kashmiri Black Bear so Rare?
The decline in the
Himalayan
brown bear and Asiatic black bear
abundance can primarily be
attributed to habitat loss and unregulated harvest. Because of
land drainage and clearing of bottomland hardwood forests for
agriculture. Unfortunately, many of these vast tracts are too
wet for agriculture and are considered marginal or totally
non-productive as cropland. Because black bears have a low
reproductive rate, the effect of illegal kill of adults,
especially females, is also a serious concern. Habitat loss
surely contributed to declining black bear populations, but
unregulated hunting may have been a primary factor limiting
recovery.
Although the amount of bottomland hardwood loss has stabilized
since the early 1990’s, restoration of this habitat is still
critical for bear recovery.
Presently, black bear
populations are found in core areas
Ladakh and Kashmir (above
snowline) , greatly diminished in numbers, with small, scattered
populations. Biologists estimate the current population at 500
to 700 animals within the historic range.
The thick understory typical in managed bottomland hardwood forests
provide such natural cover. The quality of escape cover can be
enhanced when slash and vegetative growth resulting from prescribed
timber management practices such as shelterwood cuts, intermediate
thinnings, and small elongated clear-cuts are combined with natural
understory thickets. Forest management practices also encourage food
production for bears. Grasses, thistles, blackberries, pokeweed, and
several fruiting vines are common in managed forest habitats.
Elderberry, devil’s walking stick, French mulberry, red mulberry and
wild grapes all benefit from scattered openings in forest canopy.
Rotting wood from decomposing logging slash harbors protein-rich,
colonial insects like ants and termites, which are sought by bears
during most of the year. Additional foraging opportunities are made
available by the maintenance of small, scattered permanent wildlife
openings in or adjacent to the forest. Natural vegetation,
cultivated grains and forage crops (e.g., wheat, oats, rye, corn,
clover), and plants found along the edge of forest openings (e.g.,
blackberries, dewberries, pokeweed, elderberry, devil’s walking
stick) are beneficial to bears.
Black bears use heavy cover for
daybed and den sites. Most bears use brushpiles and other ground
nests for daybeds and winter dens. Ground dens are typically made
next to discarded logs or in thick briar and vine growth. Bears
often used daybed sites in hardwood forests that have been logged
within the previous five years. Winter den sites, however, are
predominately found in tree cavities rather than ground dens. Cavity
trees are especially important in seasonally flooded areas.
Candidate den trees are considered to be bald cypress and tupelo gum
with visible cavities, having a minimum diameter at breast height (dbh)
of 36 inches, and occurring in or along rivers, lakes, streams,
bayous, sloughs, or other water bodies. However, studies throughout
the region frequently document other tree species used as den sites
that are not necessarily over water.
Denning/Hibernation
Bears start to den from late
November to early January. Activity, movement, and home range
generally decrease rapidly during this period as bears enter
“pre-dens” or nests, or enter the den where they will spend the
winter. Black bears are not true hibernators. They go through a
winter dormancy period termed “carnivorean lethargy”, or torpor,
which helps them survive food shortages and severe winter
weather. During the winter “sleep” bears do not eat, drink,
urinate, or defecate. Waste products are recycled through unique
metabolic and physiological processes and there is no
degenerative bone loss during dormancy. Black bears exhibit
varying degrees of lethargy while denning, but most can easily
be aroused if disturbed.
Denning activity is influenced by a number of factors: food
availability, age, gender, reproductive condition, photoperiod,
and weather conditions. Generally, pregnant females are the
first to den and males the last. Factors contributing to
interruption of the denning period or the changing of den sites
during a given winter include human activity, rapidly
fluctuating water levels, fluctuating extremes in weather
conditions, and the lack of concealment of ground dens. Data
collected by monitoring denning behavior indicate bears are more
active in winter months in the lower Mississippi River Valley
than at more northern latitudes. Recent observations indicate
that some females with cubs, especially in the coastal Louisiana
population, actively forage in the area near the den, leaving
their cubs for short periods and returning to care for them.
For some bears, usually males, winter inactivity may be nothing
more than bedding for a few days or weeks in one area before
moving to new bedding sites. Pregnant females, the first to seek
den sites, usually choose sites that are more secure and
inaccessible than those typically selected by males. Females
prefer large, hollow trees, as these provide dry, secure, and
well-insulated cover, but will also den in brushpiles and
thickets .
Movement
Monitoring bear movements has
revealed that bears are more active from dusk through dawn,
although daytime activity is not unusual and varies somewhat by
season. Home range sizes vary from year to year, and from season
to season, depending on population density, food availability,
sex, age, and reproductive status. Home ranges for males may
increase during the mating season in summer and both male and
female bears move extensively in fall when foraging to put on
winter fat reserves.
Bear activity revolves around the search for food, water, cover,
and for mates during the breeding season. Male black bears move
much greater distances than females, often covering 2 to 8 times
the area of females. Some adult male bears in the Tensas basin
ranged up to 35 miles from their capture site. Estimates of
average annual home range sizes indicate adult males use 20,000
acres and adult females use 5,000 acres, although individual
home ranges can vary widely. For example, one adult male in the
upper Dachigam ranged over 85,000 acres.
Bears often utilize “daybeds” under forested cover. These sites
are usually shallow, unlined depressions scratched in soft
ground or leaf litter. Mothers with cubs often bed at the base
of the largest tree in the area. The female sends the cubs up
the tree if she senses danger and either climbs the tree with
them, remains at the base of the tree or exits the area alone.
Sometimes bears will rest above ground in the crown or lower
branches of a tree.
Older adult males exert social pressure on younger bears,
especially during the spring and summer breeding season, forcing
them to disperse to other areas. Dispersal of bears, especially
young males, puts them at considerable risk. Their movements
take them to unfamiliar areas, often those inhabited by humans.
In their attempt to locate a new home, they cross roads and
highways, increasing the chances of being hit by motor vehicles,
and will likely cross areas inhabited by humans. This creates
potentially dangerous situations for both humans and bears.
Because of the stress and increased human interaction,
dispersing bears have a reduced chance of survival.
Data from studies of radio-collared bears and observation of
bear sign document that uncleared drains, ditches, bayous, and
river banks are frequently used to traverse open land when
moving from one forested tract to another. Travel corridors are
important to the movements of adult bears and the dispersal of
juveniles through agricultural lands, particularly when they are
residing in separate tracts of forested lands or in a severely
fragmented forest. Females are especially reluctant to move from
one forest block to another if there is no vegetative cover
linking the 2 areas. Drainage ditches lined with trees and
brush, even as narrow as 30 feet wide, are used by bears to pass
through open agricultural areas. Based on comparative data, this
may be a minimum width for a viable corridor; however, a good
rule of thumb would be “the wider the better.”
seeking human
survival through wildlife protection...
eIEN South Asia
Western Himalaya Kashmir
WildAID KASHMIR
allowing threatened species to recover safe levels in Kashmir
esrokashmir.org
HOME
Welcome at
WAID
eIEN South Asia
Western Himalaya Kashmir
WildAID are now in Kashmir to motivate the public to prevent cruelty to animals and to promote animal welfare and conservation policies that advance the well being of both animal and people. Small, but effective, seeking to prevent further destruction of Kashmir's Wildlife and its habitat and level the playing field by infusing resources and broad-based support into campaigns to protect wildlife, captive-held animals, and biodiversity wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. WildAID Kashmir esro Kashmir Chapter sharing a vision of a world where wildlife and wild places are truly protected.
SPECIES SPECIFIC CONSERVATION PROG.
BLACK BEAR
An Elusive adaptable carnivores
Kashmir BLACK BEAR FACTS
Ecology
Bears are one of the world’s most adaptable carnivores. Their reasoning ability, long-term memory, omnivorous food habits, dexterity, speed, strength, sense of smell, and elusive behavior contribute to their success through evolutionary time.
Kashmir black bears are black with a brown muzzle, some with a distinct white "blaze" on their chest. Adult males generally weigh from 150 to 350 pounds, and adult females range from 120 to over 250 pounds. Body length of adults, nose to tail, ranges up to 6 feet.
Female black bears become sexually mature at 3 to 5 years of age and have 1 to 5 cubs every other year. The young remain with their mother the first year, den with her the following winter, and search for their own territory in their second summer.
Bears tend to range over large areas in search of basic needs such as food, escape cover, den sites, and mates. Males have an average range of 20,000 acres while females usually maintain home ranges of roughly 5,000 acres.
Although classified as carnivores, black bears are not active predators. They are opportunistic feeders and will eat almost anything that is available. Natural foods, such as berries and acorns, comprise a majority of a bear's diet, but bears readily take advantage of food options provided by agricultural crops such as corn, wheat, oats, and sugarcane, occasionally damage beehives in search of honey, and will readily become habituated to human garbage when the opportunity exists.
Black bears are very intelligent, shy and secretive animals, and generally work hard at avoiding contact with humans. Dangerous situations may occur whenever close human activity is perceived as threatening to the bear or its cubs. The best advice is for humans to avoid close bear encounters.
Food Habits
Classified as a carnivore (i.e., meat-eating animal) by taxonomists, black bears are not usually active predators and rarely prey on vertebrate animals. There are many stories of bears feeding on nutria and other furbearers caught in traps during the days when fur trapping was a viable vocation. There have been no reports of black bears preying on livestock or pets in recent history. Bears are better described as opportunistic feeders as they eat almost anything that is available, thus they are more typically omnivorous.
The growth rate, maximum size, breeding age, litter size, and cub survival of black bears are all linked to nutrition. Bears spend a considerable amount of time foraging for food, using their keen sense of smell to locate food sources. Feeding signs are usually evident in areas of bear activity, including torn logs, broken saplings, clawed trees, and trampled food plants. Bears utilize all levels of the forest for feeding; from the forest floor to the treetops. Excellent climbers, they can gather foods from treetops and vines.
After emerging from dens in spring, bears may initially be in a “semi-fasting” state as they continue to utilize remaining fat reserves. Food is relatively scarce during this period and weight loss is often more rapid than during denning. Succulent vegetation is first utilized for food and then foods such as residual hard mast (acorns, pecans, etc.), agricultural crops, and insects are consumed. With the arrival of summer, soft mast including dewberries, blackberries, wild grapes, elderberry, persimmon, pokeweed, devil’s walking stick, thistle, and palmetto will become staples in the diet. In the fall, hard mast, such as acorns and pecans, is a particularly important fat and carbohydrate-rich food source that provides the fat reserves necessary for bears to enter the denning period in proper health. Bears exhibit their most rapid weight gain during fall, thus, hard mast is considered a critical food source at this time.
Agricultural crops supplement natural foods and can be very important food sources throughout the year, especially in areas of extremely fragmented habitat and high bear density. Bears will readily take advantage of food opportunities provided by man. Besides crops from both commercial and residential plantings, bears can get into trouble for getting into garbage and pet foods. In areas where bears are present, it is important for measures to be taken to prevent access to these tempting foods.
Habitat Requirements
Louisiana black bears that exist today do so primarily in relatively large contiguous areas of bottomland hardwood habitat. The ingredients of prime black bear habitat include escape cover, dispersal corridors, abundant and diverse natural foods, water, and den sites. Because bears are adaptable, habitat generalists, a well-managed, productive forest can reliably provide the essentials of good black bear habitat.
High quality escape cover is especially critical for bears that live in fragmented habitats and in close proximity to humans. Black bears are adaptable and can thrive if afforded areas of retreat that ensure little chance of close contact or visual encounters with humans.
About Snowleopard
Physical Description
Black bears in the region are normally black with a brown muzzle and an occasional white blaze on the chest. Average body weights are 150 to 350 pounds for adult males and 120 to 250 for adult females. The largest Louisiana black bear weight taken in recent years was a 540 lbs male from the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). Body lengths range from 3 to 6 feet from nose to their short tail. Size typically varies depending on the quality and quantity of available food.
Why is the Kashmiri Black Bear so Rare?
The decline in the Himalayan brown bear and Asiatic black bear abundance can primarily be attributed to habitat loss and unregulated harvest. Because of land drainage and clearing of bottomland hardwood forests for agriculture. Unfortunately, many of these vast tracts are too wet for agriculture and are considered marginal or totally non-productive as cropland. Because black bears have a low reproductive rate, the effect of illegal kill of adults, especially females, is also a serious concern. Habitat loss surely contributed to declining black bear populations, but unregulated hunting may have been a primary factor limiting recovery.
Although the amount of bottomland hardwood loss has stabilized since the early 1990’s, restoration of this habitat is still critical for bear recovery. Presently, black bear populations are found in core areas Ladakh and Kashmir (above snowline) , greatly diminished in numbers, with small, scattered populations. Biologists estimate the current population at 500 to 700 animals within the historic range.
The thick understory typical in managed bottomland hardwood forests provide such natural cover. The quality of escape cover can be enhanced when slash and vegetative growth resulting from prescribed timber management practices such as shelterwood cuts, intermediate thinnings, and small elongated clear-cuts are combined with natural understory thickets. Forest management practices also encourage food production for bears. Grasses, thistles, blackberries, pokeweed, and several fruiting vines are common in managed forest habitats. Elderberry, devil’s walking stick, French mulberry, red mulberry and wild grapes all benefit from scattered openings in forest canopy. Rotting wood from decomposing logging slash harbors protein-rich, colonial insects like ants and termites, which are sought by bears during most of the year. Additional foraging opportunities are made available by the maintenance of small, scattered permanent wildlife openings in or adjacent to the forest. Natural vegetation, cultivated grains and forage crops (e.g., wheat, oats, rye, corn, clover), and plants found along the edge of forest openings (e.g., blackberries, dewberries, pokeweed, elderberry, devil’s walking stick) are beneficial to bears.
Black bears use heavy cover for daybed and den sites. Most bears use brushpiles and other ground nests for daybeds and winter dens. Ground dens are typically made next to discarded logs or in thick briar and vine growth. Bears often used daybed sites in hardwood forests that have been logged within the previous five years. Winter den sites, however, are predominately found in tree cavities rather than ground dens. Cavity trees are especially important in seasonally flooded areas. Candidate den trees are considered to be bald cypress and tupelo gum with visible cavities, having a minimum diameter at breast height (dbh) of 36 inches, and occurring in or along rivers, lakes, streams, bayous, sloughs, or other water bodies. However, studies throughout the region frequently document other tree species used as den sites that are not necessarily over water.
Denning/Hibernation
Bears start to den from late November to early January. Activity, movement, and home range generally decrease rapidly during this period as bears enter “pre-dens” or nests, or enter the den where they will spend the winter. Black bears are not true hibernators. They go through a winter dormancy period termed “carnivorean lethargy”, or torpor, which helps them survive food shortages and severe winter weather. During the winter “sleep” bears do not eat, drink, urinate, or defecate. Waste products are recycled through unique metabolic and physiological processes and there is no degenerative bone loss during dormancy. Black bears exhibit varying degrees of lethargy while denning, but most can easily be aroused if disturbed.
Denning activity is influenced by a number of factors: food availability, age, gender, reproductive condition, photoperiod, and weather conditions. Generally, pregnant females are the first to den and males the last. Factors contributing to interruption of the denning period or the changing of den sites during a given winter include human activity, rapidly fluctuating water levels, fluctuating extremes in weather conditions, and the lack of concealment of ground dens. Data collected by monitoring denning behavior indicate bears are more active in winter months in the lower Mississippi River Valley than at more northern latitudes. Recent observations indicate that some females with cubs, especially in the coastal Louisiana population, actively forage in the area near the den, leaving their cubs for short periods and returning to care for them.
For some bears, usually males, winter inactivity may be nothing more than bedding for a few days or weeks in one area before moving to new bedding sites. Pregnant females, the first to seek den sites, usually choose sites that are more secure and inaccessible than those typically selected by males. Females prefer large, hollow trees, as these provide dry, secure, and well-insulated cover, but will also den in brushpiles and thickets .
Movement
Monitoring bear movements has revealed that bears are more active from dusk through dawn, although daytime activity is not unusual and varies somewhat by season. Home range sizes vary from year to year, and from season to season, depending on population density, food availability, sex, age, and reproductive status. Home ranges for males may increase during the mating season in summer and both male and female bears move extensively in fall when foraging to put on winter fat reserves.
Bear activity revolves around the search for food, water, cover, and for mates during the breeding season. Male black bears move much greater distances than females, often covering 2 to 8 times the area of females. Some adult male bears in the Tensas basin ranged up to 35 miles from their capture site. Estimates of average annual home range sizes indicate adult males use 20,000 acres and adult females use 5,000 acres, although individual home ranges can vary widely. For example, one adult male in the upper Dachigam ranged over 85,000 acres.
Bears often utilize “daybeds” under forested cover. These sites are usually shallow, unlined depressions scratched in soft ground or leaf litter. Mothers with cubs often bed at the base of the largest tree in the area. The female sends the cubs up the tree if she senses danger and either climbs the tree with them, remains at the base of the tree or exits the area alone. Sometimes bears will rest above ground in the crown or lower branches of a tree.
Older adult males exert social pressure on younger bears, especially during the spring and summer breeding season, forcing them to disperse to other areas. Dispersal of bears, especially young males, puts them at considerable risk. Their movements take them to unfamiliar areas, often those inhabited by humans. In their attempt to locate a new home, they cross roads and highways, increasing the chances of being hit by motor vehicles, and will likely cross areas inhabited by humans. This creates potentially dangerous situations for both humans and bears. Because of the stress and increased human interaction, dispersing bears have a reduced chance of survival.
Data from studies of radio-collared bears and observation of bear sign document that uncleared drains, ditches, bayous, and river banks are frequently used to traverse open land when moving from one forested tract to another. Travel corridors are important to the movements of adult bears and the dispersal of juveniles through agricultural lands, particularly when they are residing in separate tracts of forested lands or in a severely fragmented forest. Females are especially reluctant to move from one forest block to another if there is no vegetative cover linking the 2 areas. Drainage ditches lined with trees and brush, even as narrow as 30 feet wide, are used by bears to pass through open agricultural areas. Based on comparative data, this may be a minimum width for a viable corridor; however, a good rule of thumb would be “the wider the better.”
seeking human survival through wildlife protection...