Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
DAN DeWITTThe male bear's death could prove a serious blow to a small population of bears ranging from Pasco to Citrus counties.
SPRING HILL - The nation's smallest population of black bears declined by one Wednesday morning when a 12-year-old male was killed on Osowaw Boulevard.
The bear, apparently struck by a car or truck, was found by the side of the road about a mile west of the Wal-Mart Supercenter on U.S. 19.
Arline Erdrich, vice president of the Coalition of Anti-Urban Sprawl and the Environment (CAUSE) blamed the bear's death - the fifth since September 2001 - directly on the new store.
"We've been calling this since before they even broke ground," Erdrich said.
"We fought and fought and said, "Don't do this. Don't do this.' Nobody paid attention," she said. "Now, of course, they are going to do it again."
She was referring to the Hernando County Commission's decision in May to rezone 42 acres just to the south of the Wal-Mart for commercial development. In June, CAUSE filed a suit to overturn the rezoning, claiming it violated state growth management laws.
Mary Barnwell, a Swiftmud biologist who has helped with a long-term study of the population, said there is no way to determine whether Wal-Mart directly caused the bear's death.
But she did agree that more bears will inevitably die as traffic increases. And as habitat becomes more divided by development, bears will be forced to cross more roads and populated areas.
"Obviously, the more fragmented your habitat and the more developed it becomes, the higher the mortality rate," Barnwell said.
The body of the bear, whose movements had previously been monitored as part of the Swiftmud-funded study, was seen by a driver about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. It probably died several hours earlier.
"He was probably looking for females," she said. "That is probably what he was doing in this neck of the woods."
Barnwell and other researchers believe two females still live nearby - one in the southern part of the Weeki Wachee Preserve and one near Aripeka. Two more were killed within several miles of this death within a few days of one another last fall; both were thought to have left orphaned cubs.
Generally, females are considered more valuable to the population than males, Barnwell said, because one male can mate with several females and are willing to travel many miles to do so.
For example, this bear, which was tracked from 1997 until its radio collar fell off in 1999, moved up and down the corridor of preserved land west of U.S. 19, Barnwell said.
"He has the same home range as all the male bear. It's real elongated," she said.
But his death may prove to be a serious blow to the bear population - a handful of individuals scattered between northern Pasco and southern Citrus counties - if males are in such short supply that females go a season without mating.
"I haven't sat down and figured out if there are any males left," Barnwell said.
The bear, which weighed about 250 pounds at the time of his death, was lighter than he had been when researchers captured him in 1997. His teeth were quite worn, a sign of age, Barnwell said.
But otherwise "he looked pretty good," Barnwell said. And, since bears can live to be nearly 20 years old, and males can mate almost to the end of their lives, he "may have had five more years of reproducing," she said.
- Dan DeWitt covers the environment, politics and the city of Brooksville. He can be reached at 754-6116 or dewitt@sptimes.com