Bears

[dtrs5kprs]

9 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Black bears have been seen in my home area since I was a kid.  But, that was the time we were trading turkey for all kinds of stuff like otters, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and probably bears.  We wiped out wolves, mountain lions, deer, turkey, otters, and the elk from Missouri at one time.  I am pretty sure we got the bears too.

How can you pull genetics on something that has not been here since we have developed the technology to test genetics?

Sasquach and the Loch Ness monster are all remnants of the past too.  But I am glad they are back, soon we will have a season on them too.

I'm thinking .308 or 8mm Mauser for the squatch. Either way, I can cover it.

[tjm]

Oh, and first hand knowledge, from up close personal observation, we had rattle snakes and  black bear cubs  in SWMO  before we had turkeys here or otters either. Or deer for that matter, but that is second hand info from people that are dead now.

[BilletHead]

8 hours ago, tjm said:

  before we had turkeys here or otters either. Or deer for that matter, but that is second hand info from people that are dead now.

          What are you trying to say TJM? 

      There was ,many, many Turkeys, Otters and deer before greed killed them out.  Now Armadillos are a different story. Climate change is to blame their progress north,

  BilletHead

[tjm]

1 hour ago, BilletHead said:

What are you trying to say TJM? 

Bears lived through the greed, I guess they didn't have much retail value. They were endangered and ignored by the wildlife commission but never extirpated.  Saying that the state traded turkey for bears or that bears were extirpated because other animals were extirpated is .... I can't think of the words.  ..

[MOPanfisher]

40 minutes ago, tjm said:

Bears lived through the greed, I guess they didn't have much retail value. They were endangered and ignored by the wildlife commission but never extirpated.  Saying that the state traded turkey for bears or that bears were extirpated because other animals were extirpated is .... I can't think of the words.  ..

What who even remotely said that.

[Quillback]

Some Arkansas bear history:

http://arbear.org/education/the-greatest-restoration

 

[BilletHead]

               And we had elk, Gray wolf, Bison in all the Ozarks and in my part of the state Grizzly Bear before the Historic Calendar. That calendar resets at the time the white man crossed North America. Like this explanation. When we talk point types (they are not arrowheads they are points) Approximately 1750. Starting earlier on the East coast and heading West,

   BilletHead 

[Johnsfolly]

Lots of bears in the northeast and I am sure throughout the US are being poached mainly for their gall bladders.

I personally like bear meat and would love to be here when they do open up a hunting season.

[Bill Babler]

For years now bears have been seen on the Kings River drainage and also in and around Roaring River   A few years ago I was looking for an ATV and in the Kawasaki shop in Harrison which was also a hunting and bow shop they had hundreds of pictures of bears in all the North Arkansas Counties bordering Missouri.  Especially Marion, and Carol.

I've been reading quite a bit of late 1700 and 1800 material as much as I can find on the fur trade and it seems that most of the hoofed game including buffalo and elk along with Brown or Grizzly bear were not seen to an especially large extent in Missouri.  Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas were the starting point for the massive herds of cloven animals and large predators.

As both adventures, trappers and pioneers with starting points in St. Joseph and Kansas City always spoke about bringing enough provisions to get to the western and northern plains to encounter large herds of game.

That is not to say that there were not large amounts of game present including black bear and whitetail deer, but I didn't find records of large herds of either elk or bison that occupied Missouri. 

 Billethead could be very correct that would be prior to 1750.   By then Missouri was quite occupied and any of the larger game would have been compromised to some extent.

At that time the Ozarks Region was a Short Leaf Pine Forrest and really did not support the topography that would have been required for large herds of grazing animals.. 

It was, is and has been a place for browsers.

[BilletHead]

Grizzly Bear

   BilletHead