Adirondack Park Nature Magazine

Even though an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 black bears live in the Adirondacks, (first photo courtesy NYDEC) attention has been focused on a small group who mostly live in the eastern High Peaks region of the Adirondacks. In 2004, New York’s Region 5 Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) began a couple of programs to address the high number of bear complaints coming from campers in this area. The first program was to learn more by capturing, tagging, and radio collaring the bears of the Marcy Dam area – and the second was to require all campers use bear canisters.

Over the past five years, DEC researchers learned quite a bit from these programs. For example, they now know only six to eight black bears claim territory in the eastern High Peaks, the ones who live there tend to stay there (the current elder is a sixteen year old female called Yellow-Yellow – named after her two yellow ear tags), and they’ve even found out that not all canisters are bear proof (thanks to the initiatives of veteran Yellow-Yellow).

On one of the few sunny mornings this summer, Kinna Öhman met with Ed Reed, a DEC wildlife biologist near the Adirondack Lodge at Heart Lake to hear more about the bears of the eastern High Peaks. (7:13)
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