What is the Fish and Wildlife Service doing to restore the threatened Louisiana black bear?
The Service continues to work in partnership with the BBCC to facilitate recovery of the Louisiana black bear. The Service is providing $25,000 in Fiscal Year 2004 to support the BBCC’s Executive Director position. The Service, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the BBCC, USDA Wildlife Services, and Louisiana State University are implementing a project to relocate Louisiana black bear females and their cubs to suitable unoccupied habitat in the Three Rivers/Red River complex of east-central Louisiana. That site comprises more than 100,000 acres of publically owned land (National Wildlife Refuge and State Wildlife Management Areas). The purpose of that project is to establish another breeding subpopulation between the Tensas and Atchafalaya River Basin subpopulations to accelerate population expansion. The project began in March 2001 when four female bears and their cubs were released on the Red River Wildlife Management Area. Since that time, an additional 12 female be
