Dokken: Black bear sightings rise in North Dakota as population expands

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in nearly three decades of covering the outdoors, it’s that wildlife sightings or encounters that are beyond the ordinary get people’s attention.

Such was the case Oct. 18, when multiple trail camera photos of as many as five black bears converging on a bait pile set for deer east of Grafton, North Dakota, showed up on social media. As of Thursday morning, Oct. 24, the posting had been shared more than 1,000 times – just from that site.

In this age of trail cameras and social media, it’s hard for critters to hide.

No doubt bear sightings in North Dakota have become more common in recent years, a trend that should come as no surprise, given strong black bear populations just across the Red River in northwest Minnesota.

Growing up in northwest Minnesota, I remember when bear sightings were a relatively uncommon occurrence. Over time, though, bears became more abundant as the population expanded west from more heavily forested areas in northern Minnesota.

Now, bears are common in northwest Minnesota – and a similar story may be playing out in North Dakota.

Stephanie Tucker, Game Management Section leader and furbearer biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Bismarck, said she has seen the Grafton trail camera photos and confirmed they’re legitimate.

“As I mentioned to the reporting party, bears are notorious for taking advantage of a free meal, and large bait piles can attract multiple bears because they are pretty tolerant of one another when food is not in short supply,” Tucker told me in an email. “We highly encourage folks to remove any food attractants for at least two weeks if they don’t want bears around.”

Not that many years ago, the thought was that North Dakota didn’t have a known breeding black bear population –

the Game and Fish Department still says as much on its website

– and that any bears seen in the state were simply passing through.

No more, Tucker says.

“Actually, we have confirmed breeding on our side of the (Red) river, not to mention bears are definitely over-wintering in our state,” she said.

Game and Fish tracks bear and other furbearer sightings through an

online reporting feature

it launched a few years ago. So far this year, the department has received more than 20 reports of bear sightings, of which more than 15 were verified.

Only a couple of those reports turned out to be unfounded.

The number of black bear reports Game and Fish received between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, was up from previous years, as well, Tucker says.

“Each bear can – and typically does – get reported multiple times, so the graph is not necessarily a reflection of the number of bears present,” Tucker said. “For example, we’ve had at least two black bears (maybe more) that were wandering around western North Dakota this summer and fall, which were reported to us at least eight times.”

So far, at least, the department doesn’t have any plans to launch a formal research project to learn more about bear populations in the state, Tucker says. Nor –

as she told me last year about this time

– are there any plans to establish a hunting season.

“I’m not convinced we need to let some hunters harvest some bears to find out more about them in North Dakota,” Tucker told me in a story I wrote in September 2023. “They are pretty conspicuous and with the prevalence of trail cameras, we have a pretty good idea of what is going on.”

And while no formal study is on the horizon, Tucker says she encourages the public to report bear sightings, either with the

online reporting feature

or by contacting the department through more traditional means.

“We really, really appreciate any (and) all information the public has been – and hopefully continues – to provide us about bears in their area,” Tucker said.

gf.nd.gov/wildlife/id/carnivores/black-bear

bearwise.org