ESCANABA — As spring arrives, black bears will be emerging from dens, hungry after their hibernation. To reduce potential conflicts with bears in human environments, the best action that people can take is to remove available food sources.

It won’t be until later in the spring and summer that bears’ preferred food — berries, acorns and other fruits and budding plants — will be out in full force, so the animals have to seek out things to eat in the meanwhile. Bears are opportunistic omnivores, and bird feeders, bait piles, bee apiaries, chicken coops and garbage cans often provide easy pickings.

Bears are generally fearful of people, and “it is critical that they retain their natural fear of humans,” according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Refraining from intentionally or knowingly feeding bears will help keep them in areas not populated by people.

Bears live on average 10 years in the wild, according to the DNR, but can live up to 30. They are capable of remembering experiences from year to year — including where they found food. If a bear wakes up in the spring and doesn’t find food nearby in the woods but knows that Mrs. Hubbard’s bird feeders 15 miles away have always been tasty and that he’s never been scared away, he’ll probably head to Mrs. Hubbard’s.

If the bear finds that Mrs. Hubbard has wised up and now only puts her bird feeders out in the winter months, he’ll probably keep moving along.

Grills and uncleared picnic tables that may still carry food residue can also be attractive to bears, animals that have a keen sense of smell. These items should be cleaned after use.

Odors on garbage cans can be reduced through regular emptying and cleaning the container with disinfectant. When possible, they should be kept inside. Larger dumpsters should be chained or locked shut.

Since bears tend to be nocturnal, sometimes keeping the attractive items indoors at night is enough. Bears are less likely to ravage neighborhood trash cans if residents wheel them outside only the morning of collection day, rather than leaving them out all night.

To prevent bears from accessing things like fruit trees, apiaries, chicken coops and gardens, electric fencing has shown to be successful. There are also products that act as deterrents by making noise when a motion sensor is triggered.

The bear population in the Upper Peninsula is about 11,000, according to DNR estimates. Technically, the exact figure they arrived at was 10,969 in 2023. To make that determination, the DNR uses a statistical catch-at-age (SCAA) model, which is built using equations that factor in a number of data points — the sex and age (determined from a tooth) of each reported bear harvest, the number of bear hunters, hunting success rates, natural bear mortality, and recruitment (the number of cubs that reach maturity).

In addition, “we need to periodically conduct independent analyses of the bear populations to check and see how well our models are working,” said Wildlife Biologist Joe Sage. “The last time this was done in the U.P. was 2014, through hair snare and tetracycline surveys.  The DNR will be planning to conduct the next independent estimate in the near future.”

That number of approximately 11,000 bears has climbed around 30% since 2012, when there were concerns that the bear population was falling too low due to over-harvesting– it was then around 8,500, the lowest it had been since 1994.

It became a goal to allow bears to proliferate by issuing fewer hunting tags.

“Our biggest tool to manage bears is hunting seasons,” Wildlife Technician Colter Lubben explained. “Our goal in 2012 and (over) the past decade has been to grow the population, and we’re successfully doing that. And now we’re in the stage where we’re trying to stabilize the population.

“…We know we have a growing bear population,” Lubben said.

Looking at the data, including that of the reported complaints from people in the Upper Peninsula, one sees that the number of incidents between bears and humans did not rise when the bear population did. The two do not correlate. Although the number of bears in the U.P. has climbed by 30%, they don’t seem to be causing any more trouble.

Between 2003 and 2013, the average number of reports per year was 148. Between 2014 and 2024, an average of 151 reports per year came in. There were fewer than half the number of reports in 2018 (100) compared to 2017 (219), indicating that something other than just bear quantities drove those occurrences. Perhaps there was a bumper crop of acorns or some other food source in 2018, lowering the necessity for bears to seek food in people’s yards.

Most of the time, when incidents occur in the U.P., the bears are just looking for food. In Lubben’s 11 years with the DNR serving Delta and Menominee counties, he said he’s never encountered a report of an attack on a person or even a pet. However, in the Northern Lower Peninsula, where the population grew rapidly, nuisance complaints increased four-fold between 2012 and 2020, domestic dogs were killed, and one jogger was injured in 2013.

The DNR has four categories into which reports may be placed. Category IV, the least severe, are not considered threats to public safety or personal property. Category III bears are considered threats to property because they are known to have caused property damage or have been repeatedly observed in an area. Category II means there is a threat to public safety either because the bear is diseased, is physically confined to an area and seems incapable of leaving (like in an urban center), or is exhibiting repeated aggressive behavior. Category I bears are considered threats because they are known to have directly caused human injury or death.

In the least severe cases, the DNR may take no action. Sometimes, Lubben said, people who have recently moved to a rural area and have had little experience with wildlife make a report when there is no cause for alarm. In some cases, residents may be advised on ways to reduce incidents, like moving certain things indoors or installing motion sirens.

When a bear is a little more of a problem, it is trapped and relocated at least 50 air miles from the place it had been causing a nuisance.

In the most severe cases, bears are euthanized.

There are instances in which farmers, property owners or others have the authority to kill a bear, even without a permit or hunting license. One is if property is actively being damaged and other options have been exhausted. Another allowed instance, as part of the Large Carnivore Act, is if a bear is chasing, injuring, attacking or killing a human, livestock, poultry or mammalian pet.

Recently, in February 2025, the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) updated some regulations around bear hunting after hearing from a number of groups, many of which were hunting associations.

One adjustment, with the aim of stabilizing the bear population, was developed based on the desired harvest of 1,244 bears from the U.P. during the 2025 and ’26 seasons. Though that number is 4% higher than the desired kill number for the previous two years, hunters were more successful than anticipated during the last seasons, so the number of tags issued will actually be 6% fewer than last year. There will be greater amounts of tags issued in the Amasa, Baraga and Carney bear management units.

Other suggestions for regulation changes, like to shift bear hunting season in the U.P. earlier and to increase the dog training limit from eight to 10, were not adopted.

The application period for the bear drawing is from May 1 to June 1.