WBUR • July 3, 2023
This time of year, young black bears who are about 1 1/2 years old leave their mothers. The males travel in search of their own territory. Females stick closer to their mother’s home range. The Kilham Bear Center in Lyme New Hampshire, which raises orphaned cubs, tries to mimic this behavior by releasing bears into the wild in late spring and early summer. This year they raised and are releasing 137 black bears. Jaclyn Comeau, the black bear project leader with the state of Vermont, said, “We know our bears in Vermont disburse to New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Canada, southern New England. So, this is all part of the normal genetic mixing even without us moving them around like this."