(St. Paul, MN) — The Minnesota D-N-R is reminding hunters not to harvest marked research bears when the season opens on September 1st. Project leader Andy Tri says the bears with G-P-S radio collars all have large cattle-style ear tags.
He says “It is legal to shoot a collared bear, but we ask that folks do not because we’re working on a phase of this study that requires the bears to go from cubs all the way to their first reproduction. And so it takes a long time – five or six years of constant monitoring – to get that information.”)
Tri says most of the 40 radio-collared bears are in the Brainerd, Little Falls, and Grand Rapids areas. The state had the highest number of bear license applicants this year since 2001.