A Great Smoky Mountains National Park ranger prepares to tranquilize a black bear. The bear will be fitted with a GPS-equipped radio collar to help track its movements as part of a University of Tennessee study of bears’ roaming patterns.The mama bear’s carcass lay by the roadside, most likely struck by a passing car in the last moments of her life.
To researchers, she’s one more casualty in the urban world’s unintentional war on wildlife. More could follow as bears in the Smoky Mountains emerge from hibernation this spring.
“We know this bear had a couple of cubs, and we don’t know if they survived,” said Jessica Giacomini, a University of Tennessee graduate student who’s spent the past three years studying the roaming patterns of black bears in the Smokies. “We know the bear population in the Smokies has been growing since the ’90s. We know the Smokies get around 11 million visitors every year.
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The black bear is one of many tagged during two projects being conducted in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Jessica Giacomini poses with a black bear family in the Great Smoky Mountains. Giacomini has been studying bears in the Smokies as her master’s project.