"Eat real food, mostly plants, not too much", words to live by from Micheal Pollan. I don't think most people score one out of three but black bears nail two of them.
The preliminary harvest data from the Wisconsin bruin season is in: hunter success rates and harvest were down. An estimated 3,000 bears got tagged, the hunter success rate was 23%. It wasn't for lack of trying. Over 130,000 people applied, more than 12,000 got tags. So what happened? Too many mosquitoes, bad weather, what? The answer may have been acorns!
Turns out the fall of 2023 had a bumper crop of acorns in northern Wisconsin. Despite the efforts of thousands of hunters pouring lord-only-knows how many gallons of bait into the woods, the black bears preferred to dine of what they evolved to, acorns--especially white oak acorns.
Donuts, reject candy, old bread, and you-name-it filled bait piles under the hopeful gaze of hunters. Perhaps they were projecting their sweet tooths onto the bears. I like bagels and candy.
The reduced Wisconsin harvest is no cause for alarm regarding the health of bear numbers in the Badger State. Rather, it's a refreshing testament that despite temptations the healthful evolutionary urges of black bears kept them on nature forage. I wish I could do the same.
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