Ruling leaves bear researcher in the dark

Post date: Oct 27, 2014 1:27:14 PM

Updated: October 25, 2014 - 4:45 PM

Star Tribune

Bear researcher Lynn Rogers of Ely has no idea whether any of the eight bears he has been studying were shot during the recently ended bear hunting season.

He removed radio collars from the bears last summer after an administrative law judge ruled in May that the DNR had authority to refuse to renew a permit to Rogers to collar the animals. A DNR administrator last month affirmed that decision.

“Without the collars, it’s hard to know what happened to the bears,’’ he said last week.

Rogers said he hasn’t seen the bears since he removed the collars. “They’re mostly in dens now,’’ he said. For 14 years, he hand-fed bears to collar them with satellite tracking devices. He drew a global audience when he posted live Internet video of them in their dens, which he also is prohibited from doing now.

The DNR cited concerns about public safety, conduct that it considered unprofessional and questions about the validity of Rogers’ research. Rogers filed an appeal recently with the state Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, two bears being studied by the DNR were killed by hunters who didn’t see the radio collars, said Karen Noyce, DNR bear research biologist. One of the females was 19 years old; the other was 11. The DNR has asked hunters to avoid shooting collared bears, though it’s not illegal to do so.

“We were sorry to lose those two animals,’’ Noyce said. “I talked to both hunters and am convinced they didn’t see the collars. They were quite surprised and sorry.’’

The DNR still has about 18 collared bears in northern Minnesota.

Doug Smith