Have you noticed a theme here?

Yes, the bears are back in the news. :)

This time it's back home in SE Texas. Seems a grad student from Michigan State has done a survey on reintroducing black bears to the Big Thicket:

Tex was a popular fixture in Silsbee during the 1930s and '40s.

The 400-pound black bear rode a bike, had his own skates and could knock back a stiff drink with the best of them.

You know the Texas bear is the most bad-ass of all the North American bears. :P

But not since the 1950s have black bears roamed the Piney Woods - much less roamed a filling station in Silsbee, marking time until he was released in a primitive attempt at restocking the Big Thicket with his kind.

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"My father was interested in restocking the Big Thicket," recalled Silsbee resident C.E. "Pete" Landolt, whose father took care of Tex. "In 1929 to 1931 it was the Depression. People came from Jefferson County and killed our game because there was no Social Security or anything like that."

Tex was an orphan. His mother had been a part of an attempt to restock the Big Thicket with black bears before she was shot and killed.

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The questionnaire was mailed in January and February to 3,000 residents in Hardin, Orange, Liberty, Tyler, Polk, Jasper, Newton, Trinity, San Jacinto, Angelina, Sabine and San Augustine counties.

More than 1,000 surveys were returned. Respondents were an average of 54 years old, and 72 percent were men.

Morzillo said 30 percent to 40 percent of those surveyed indicated they had seen a bear in East Texas. However, she noted this could have been another animal such as a wild hog or dog.

About a quarter of respondents indicated they had seen a black bear in the wild somewhere in the United States and Canada. Most indicated it was a positive experience.

"A number of people were able to say the exact month and year," she said. "So it was a memorable occasion for the people that saw them. A number said it was a negative experience, too."

The majority of attitudes toward black bears were positive and most indicated that bears have a right to exist as part of the environment.

Well I think it's cool they are trying to restore the bears to the woods. I was looking for bears on the mountain in Wyoming at least once a week for a whole summer and never saw one. I got ticked off when other people saw them on days I was working.

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