Bear spotted raiding a bird feeder in Osage in 2015.
More residents in northeast Iowa report spotting a large black bear, lumbering around north of Dubuque, sniffing garbage cans and gobbling bird seed from feeders.
DNR wildlife biologist Vince Evelsizer says they’re sending educational pamphlets to homes in the area to familiarize people with this rare, wild creature.
“We just encourage residents and homeowners to remove any food attractants and that will vastly reduce the odds of there being encounters or nuisance issues,” Evelsizer says. “So things like putting away pet food, barbecues or bird feeding stations for a while, suspend the bird feeding for a while, things like that.”
Under no circumstances should anyone try to get a close-up look at the bear, he says, and certainly don’t try to take a selfie with it. “We just encourage folks to use common sense and to give that bear plenty of space,” Evelsizer says. “Don’t approach it and get too close to it.”
This medium-to-large male bear is believed to be the same one that’s been photographed and videotaped in the vicinity of Dubuque each of the last several years. Evelsizer says he’s often spotted in April or May and is seen occasionally during the spring and early summer, but usually vanishes around mid-July.
“We don’t have a breeding population of bears at this time, so this is an individual living in Iowa,” Evelsizer says. “What’s interesting with him is that it does appear that he has indeed resided in Iowa now for three to four years minimum. They were native to our state, and a few have made their way back into Iowa. We suspect there’ll be more coming. Time will tell.”
Bears vanished from Iowa’s landscape early in the last century. Over the past 20 years, he says there have only been perhaps four-dozen credible bear sightings in Iowa, but those numbers are starting to climb.