CAMBRIA COUNTY -- It's that time of year when the Pennsylvania Game Commission heads out into the woods to study the bear population, particularly the state's newest arrivals.
They're as cute and cuddly and as they look, but getting to the cubs and their mama is no easy feat.
To get to one den in Cambria County Thursday, officials and their guests trekked more than an hour into the woods, up steep hills, through deep brush and mud.
Game commission officer were able to find the den and first tranquilized the mother bear before removing her cubs.
"We go to their dens once a year, usually mid-March," said Mark Ternent, a black bear biologist with the PA Game Commission. "The cubs are born during the second week of January and by mid-March the cubs are large enough to ear tag."
Ternent and a veterinarian join the team to make sure bears are healthy and to keep track of important data.
"It helps us determine biological data, check on the health of bears in PA and helps us to determine the population of bears we have in PA," said Seth Mesoras, a wildlife conservation officer. "We're required to tag a certain number of bears every year and that helps us meet that tagging quota so we can estimate our population levels in the state."
Once they finish with mom, officers turn to the cubs, who on Thursday had plenty of people there to hold them and keep them company.
After being weighed, the cubs were tagged. They squealed and cried but even though it sounded painful, officers assured it's a quick, painless and important process.
"It does not hurt them. It's similar to a human getting their ear pierced. A little pinch and they're done," said Mesoras. "They get tags on them and the numbers on these tags will stay with this bear so we're able to tell where it comes from. If it happens to show up in a harvest later on in the year or if we happen to catch it as a nuisance bear, we can tell where this bear originated from."
Last year more than 2.200 bears were harvested in Pennsylvania. Tagging them as cubs helps the game commission keep track of where they came from, how far they travel and how old they are when they're captured or killed.
"To make sure we're not overharvesting the population helps us to understand how many new cubs are being brought into the population on an annual basis," Ternent said. "So understanding what's going on here today, what the reproductive rates are and the bear population in this part of the state helps us to set the seasonable bag limit stipulations for the upcoming hunting season."
Thursday's visit was one of several that game commission officers are conducting right now at bear dens across the state.
Officials said the tranquilizer they use on the mother bear is safe and relatively short lasting. It's effects last long enough for them to check her and her babies, tag them and get out before she wakes up.
The game commission said the mother bear won't even be able to realize that anyone was there. That's because they put vapor run on her nose. Once that scene disappears, they say, do does theirs.
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