Most of the environmental articles I found about New Orleans pertained to the oil spill (take your pick, there are so many) so I chose TWO articles, one of course on the spill and another on Black Bears in Louisiana. There is a lot of debate as to whether or not these animals are threatened anymore and for the longest time--no one ever counted them... So the answer was unclear. The last count in 2008 at Louisiana's largest black bear concentration was 300.
Since we were on the topics of homes I thought it should be noted that black bears are losing theirs. They are protected from hunting as of the decision to have them on the federal list of threatened species in 1992, but they are losing their habitats.
The article is just below for further information. I found it rather interesting as it's not normally a topic I think of in Louisiana but it is certainly an important subject as these animals are very important to this state.
Louisiana black bears are counted for the first time
Published: Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 1:53 PM Updated: Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 2:00 PM
The Associated Press Louisiana's largest black bear concentration, in a northeastern refuge, had about 300 animals in 2008, the first-ever scientific count shows.
View full sizeThe study is the first of several that will decide whether the Louisiana black bear -- inspiration for teddy bears -- should still be considered threatened.State wildlife biologist Mike Hooker, who recently completed analysis of data collected in 2006-08, said that doesn't count 49 sows and their 100 or so cubs moved from the area during that period to build numbers of the threatened species elsewhere in the state.
Hooker's study is the first of several that will decide whether the Louisiana black bear -- inspiration for teddy bears -- should still be considered threatened. State officials expect to decide in 2013 whether to ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to "delist" the bears.
"I don't think they could justify that," said Harold Schoeffler, who filed the Sierra Club lawsuit that got the bears onto the federal list of threatened species in 1992, protecting them from hunting. He said their numbers are increasing, but they face many threats, particularly habitat loss -- and, for a coastal population, hurricanes.
There has never been a reliable count of black bears in Louisiana, though the Wildlife Service estimated the total two years ago at 400 to 700.
Hooker's estimate of 300 in and around the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge compares to statewide estimates of as few as 150 before the bear was protected.
Signs the total is rising include increases in the numbers hit by cars, seen in new areas, caught and relocated because they've been plundering garbage cans in south Louisiana, or wandering in residential neighborhoods from New Iberia to Ruston. Some Louisiana black bears have settled in east Texas, where they once were plentiful.
To get scientific data, Hooker used DNA samples snagged by hair snares -- knee-level triangles or squares of barbed-wire baited with sweet scents such as raspberry, anise or sassafras and a bit of stale pastry as enticement to follow the next lure.
Those identified 202 bears from the subspecies once found in Mississippi, south Arkansas and east Texas as well as Louisiana.
Black bears are the smallest U.S. bears. The Louisiana subspecies, one of 16, is small for a black bear, with females averaging 120 to 250 pounds and males 150 to 350.
It's the only federally protected subspecies, though the Florida black bear has state protection and the American black bear cannot be hunted in Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas.
Defenders of Wildlife, which tried unsuccessfully to get federal protection for Florida black bears, estimates there are 300,000 black bears in the United States and another 300,000 in Canada.
The 150 relocated Tensas animals were released about halfway between the Tensas bears and the Pointe Coupee population in the northern Atchafalaya basin. A third population is in coastal areas of the Atchafalaya basin, cut off from the northern bears by water and two highways.
To get black bears off the threatened list -- as farmers and hunters want to do -- Louisiana must show at least two groups are big enough to survive without protection and that bears move freely between those groups. An initial three-year study is winding up in Pointe Coupee. Follow-up studies are under way there and in the Tensas refuge. A three-year count also began this year in the coastal area.
Sixteen bears have been fitted with tracking collars and researchers hope to collar another 14 to see if they move between groups, said Maria Davidson, large carnivore program manager for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Hooker presented his study Sept. 18 at a department meeting in Tallulah, where the refuge is headquartered and where the fourth Teddy Bearfest will be held Oct. 9.
The bears' biggest population is in and around the refuge, Hooker said.
While the bears are revered by many, farmers don't think they are so cute.
"We've had a lot of trouble with them," said Kyle Holloway, who can see the refuge from his farm southeast of Delhi. He said he sees more bears than deer in his fields. They've torn up the hoppers of a planting machine that had to be left overnight in a soggy field; they ripped plastic irrigation pipe; one has repeatedly torn insulation from the outside walls of his hunting camp.
"The farmers really hate them," said Joe Pankey, who has studied bear damage to farmland for the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
He said he could easily see damage to corn running hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Bears also get into peanuts, soybeans, sugar cane and sweet potatoes, he said.
Because they're protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, anyone harming a black bear can be fined $5,000 and get two years in jail. Problem bears can be caught and relocated.
Schoeffler said farmers objected to listing the bears as threatened, and their objections would be just as unjustified now. "Cane farmers came unglued: 'We got bears all over the place. We've got to shoot 'em to get 'em out of our behinds.'"
By Janet McConnaughey, Associated Press writer
© 2010 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.
Oh, and this is a link to the article about the oil spill. Equally important, of course, I just figured that most of us have already read quite a bit on the spill and should already be in the know about what is going on.
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