Large predators make a comeback

Editor's Note: An edited version of this column is published in the Sunday, August 17th edition.

Richard Holford's email arrived just after I returned to Iowa from a visit to Denville, New Jersey, my hometown. I'd had coffee with him the day before and asked if he'd seen any bears recently. I was 24 hours early. 'A large bear just ambled across the back of my lot”, his email reported.

While growing up in Jersey in the ‘50s and ‘60s no one would have imagined black bears moving into the state. They've now been confirmed in every county with routine sightings common in many areas.

Denville is just 32 miles east of Midtown Manhattan, and New Jersey is the nation's most densely populated state. Over 8 million people crowd an area one seventh Iowa's size.

Despite all the people black bears, coyotes, and probably even cougars have made an amazing comeback in New Jersey, and the state isn't alone. Across much of the United States, including Iowa, large predators are re-establishing themselves after years of absence.

In recent decades Iowa has seen vast population increases of deer, wild turkeys, river otters, and bobcats. A moose loitered near Cedar Rapids last winter, a bear family is feasting on northeast Iowa bee hives, and cougars and wolf sightings are occasionally documented. What's going on and what can we expect as years roll by?

Several environmental, demographic and political factors have converged to help many wildlife species expand. They include:

l Changing demographics. Years ago thousands of families lived on small farms across America. Most had a rifle at the back door ready to shoot any wayward predator or potential food animal. Gradually farms grew larger and many rural families moved to town. Fewer people live on the land to shoot a wayward cougar or bear.

l Changing landscapes. Between the mid 1600s and the Civil War farms were carved out of the immense forest that once covered much of Eastern North America. As better farmland in the Midwest opened to settlement and agriculture mechanized thousands of eastern farms were abandoned and grew back to forest. Today the United States is mostly wooded from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic, providing big predators privacy and freedom of movement. Although the reverse is happening in rural Iowa as trees are being replaced by crops, land near Cedar Rapids and other Iowa cities has followed the eastern pattern. A couple of decades ago marginal small farms hugged city limits. Gradually the farmers died off and their children took city jobs. Land value near town skyrocketed. Upper income people often bought the old farms, built one large house on it and allowed the rest to revert to trees. Forests continue to expand near cities.

' Increased predator food. A century ago deer either didn't exist or were rare across most of the country. Today they're abundant. Deer are the primary food source of cougars and secondary bear chow. Where once a wandering cougar would starve lunch is now nearly everywhere.

' Changing attitudes. Society once branded predators as vermin with laws encouraging persecution. That's changed. Many 21st Century people view bears, cougars, and wolves as fascinating components of nature worthy of protection. Our collective trigger finger isn't as itchy as it once was.

' Wildlife adaptability. Biologists once believed that many wildlife species needed huge habitat blocks to thrive. They were often wrong. That predators now thrive in pockets of suburban woodlands is a tribute to their adaptability.

These combined factors facilitated the comeback of deer, wild turkeys, and many other species but big predators capture headlines. Typically newly arrived individuals of a long extirpated species are young males wandering around seeking a place to live. Females usually stay close to where they were born and disperse more slowly than males. Sighting an occasional male cougar, wolf, moose, or bear doesn't prove re-establishment. When females appear the picture changes and indicate that a breeding population may be present.

No one is certain what the Iowa wildlife future holds but apparently we now have a bear family living in the state, cougars have been documented, and at least a wolf or two show up now and then.

My hunch is that we'll have a limited reproducing population of black bears in and near wooded river corridors. Occasional wolves will follow rivers down from Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sightings will increase, but I doubt our political climate will support a reproducing wolf population. Cougar reports will multiply as their population swells in the Black Hills and western Great Plains, pushing young males out. Whether females follow is anyone's guess.

The coming of large predators shouldn't cause alarm. Black bears now live in proximity to millions of Americans, yet confrontations with people are exceedingly rare. Shy wolves and cougars avoid people.

The likely result of a growing bear population is the hassles they bring. Bears love bird seed and food waste and target feeders and trash cans. Many New Jersey residents have had to forego bird feeding and store trash inside. Bears are an apiary threat, and beekeepers will need to protect them with electric fences.

How common large predators become in Iowa is unknown, but the return of these long absent wild animals is exciting.

' Rich Patterson is a founder of Winding Pathways. Comments: windingpathways@gmail.com.