A black bear recently wandered onto a South Texas ranch near\u00a0Benavides, surprising property owners who later spotted the animal on a game camera, according to 3News.<\/p>\n
The owner of a\u00a0Duval County ranch shared images with the Corpus Christi television station showing the bear investigating a feeder. The sighting is unusual for a region that does not have an established black bear population.<\/p>\n
Benavides is located about 70 miles west of Corpus Christi, roughly a one-hour drive from the Coastal Bend city.<\/p>\n
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials told 3News that black bears are listed as a threatened species in Texas and have gradually returned to parts of the state through natural dispersal after decades of population declines caused by hunting and habitat loss.<\/p>\n
“Black bears are a state-threatened species. We’ve seen them naturally dispersing back into Texas in recent years,” said\u00a0Lerrin Johnson, a Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist.<\/p>\n
Black bears are most commonly found in the\u00a0Trans-Pecos region of West Texas, particularly around Big Bend. However, wildlife officials have documented an increasing number of sightings elsewhere in the state as populations recover.<\/p>\n
Young bears can travel long distances in search of food, habitat and mates, sometimes turning up in areas where the species is rarely seen.<\/p>\n
According to Johnson, the bear photographed near\u00a0Benavides was likely a young animal exploring new territory and searching for food.<\/p>\n
“It could be a young sub-adult that is being curious or just trying to find new habitat or food sources,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n
According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, the last documented black bear sighting in Duval County occurred in October 2020.<\/p>\n
Wildlife officials generally consider bear sightings in South Texas to involve transient animals moving through the region rather than members of an established local population.<\/p>\n
Black bears are omnivores that primarily eat plant material, but they are also attracted to insects, carrion, pet food, livestock feed, garbage and deer feeders.<\/p>\n
After spotting the bear, Thomas contacted Texas Parks and Wildlife, a step officials encourage whenever a bear is seen.<\/p>\n
“We do encourage folks to leave wildlife wild and keep their distance,” Johnson said. “Reach out to Texas Parks and Wildlife, whether that be your local game warden or your local biologist.”<\/p>\n
Wildlife officials urge residents not to approach or feed bears and to report sightings to local game wardens or biologists. Texas Parks and Wildlife also recommends resources such as\u00a0BearWise, a website that offers information on how to safely coexist with bears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A black bear recently wandered onto a South Texas ranch near\u00a0Benavides, surprising property owners who later spotted the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-331182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}