Backyard care is key for Vermonters coexisting with black bears

Vermonters are being urged to take steps early in the season to limit black bears’ access to high-calorie food around homes, as a warming climate is moving bears out of hibernation earlier and increasing how often they look for meals in human-settled areas. Jaclyn Comeau, a bear biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, said bears emerging from dens can find backyard beehives, birdfeeders, compost piles and chicken coops.

Comeau said black bears are “super adaptable” and “very curious,” and that they keep searching for what is most accessible. She said the department has documented a steep rise in reported bear incidents over the past decade, and that while some of that increase can be linked to changes that made incidents easier to report, other factors are also at work, including the size of the bear population and how people have developed land.

In recent years, Comeau said, the state’s bear population estimate has increased, rising from between 4,000 and 6,000 bears in 2018 to between 6,500 and 8,000 bears in 2024. She said the latest count is nearly double what a Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department population model outlined as the objective range of 3,500 to 5,500 bears. Comeau also pointed to timing shifts: she said bears’ emergence has crept about two weeks earlier over roughly the past 15 years, moving from around April 1 to mid-March.

With bears appearing earlier, Comeau said Vermonters need to change when they act, removing or bear-proofing potential food sources sooner than they might have in the past. She said when bears get used to finding food near people, they often keep returning, and that behavior can become part of what future generations learn when moms teach cubs where to look.

Comeau said bear-proofing can help prevent repeated conflicts across the rest of the year, including by taking down bird feeders, storing trash and compost in bear-resistant containers, and using electric fences around chicken coops and bee hives. She said being proactive is the best approach to stop problems before they start, warning that people should not wait to react only once a bear reaches a garbage can or a bird feeder.

“Don’t wait until the bear gets into your garbage before you find a more secure way to store it. Don’t wait for the bear to hit your birdfeeder to tell you it’s time to take it in,” Comeau said. She added: “We (humans) are playing a big role in this, and it really is up to us if we want to see less bears raiding our garbage cans and raiding our chicken coops.”

Tom Rogers, executive director at Stowe Land Trust, said human development is another driver of increased bear conflict and that people can also influence outcomes by how they manage their impact on wildlife habitat. Rogers, who previously worked on bear-human conflict with the Fish and Wildlife Department, said, “We are encroaching on bear habitat more and more,” and that as land becomes more developed and forest blocks become more fragmented, conflicts with bears become more likely.

Rogers said bears with fragmented habitat often have to pass through human-settled areas more frequently, which can create opportunities for them to learn that people are a source of food. He said Stowe has been a hot spot of bear activity in recent years and that out-of-state tourists may be a factor if they are not always aware of best practices that prevent bears from being attracted to homes and businesses.

Stowe Land Trust and other conservation groups are working on efforts Rogers described as protecting corridors of land that connect larger forest areas, including the Shutesville Hill wildlife corridor that he said connects the Green Mountains and the Worcester Range. Rogers said the goal is to reduce conflicts not only between bears and people, but also to benefit other species including moose, deer and bobcats.

Rogers tied the issue to broader effects of climate change on Vermont’s wildlife, saying warmer winters affect species beyond bears. He said snowshoe hares and short-tailed weasels can become more vulnerable when snowpack arrives later or disappears earlier, and he said small mammals such as voles rely on deep snowpack for insulation that can be disrupted by mid-winter melts or rainstorms. Rogers said the complex landscape changes make it even more important for people to protect habitat needed by wildlife.