BEAR-TRACKING TEAM GETS SURVIVAL LESSON; STATE BIOLOGISTS STUDY REPRODUCTION AND MORTALITY RATES OF BLACK BEARS.

Byline: Gary Voet Sacramento Bee

Rich Callas remembers the first time he came nose to nose with a bear. But then how can you ever forget getting stuck upside-down inside a tree stump with your head inches away from a slumbering black bear, her breath warming your face?

It was three years ago when Callas and two other wildlife biologists tracked a mother bear and her cub to a hardwood tree that had been hollowed out by fire, forming a ``chimney'' about two feet in diameter.

``Since I was the skinniest, the vote was for me to climb down the tree,'' Callas recalled. ``I got in and somewhere along the way I got stuck. I was dangling upside down atop the (tranquilized) bears, wondering how long they would stay asleep.''

Before the bear awoke, Callas's partners were able to ``grab my feet and pull me out.''

Callas and fellow biologists Tim Burton, Fred Schmalenberger and Don Koch are part of a 10-year Department of Fish and Game project studying the reproduction and mortality rates of California black bears in parts of Siskiyou and Shasta counties.

The scientists are compiling information they hope will reveal the number of cubs a female has at certain ages, as well as survival statistics on sub-adult bears - 2- to 4-year-old animals that have left their mother and are at the most risk of being killed either by older male bears, man or starvation.

They trap and collar bears in the late spring and early summer, then track them through the radio collar in February, when the females are in dens with their cubs. The mortality data could lead to the bears gaining protected-species status by the state.

Trapping and collaring the bears is exciting for the study team, but it's nothing like entering a confined and dark den through an opening that usually serves as both the entrance and exit.

Schmalenberger, who spends half the year dealing with timber sales projects and the other half assisting with the bear study, remembers his first den experience was an anxious one, too. The voices of the other biologists resonated inside the tree trunk, waking the mother bear.

``I was about two feet away,'' Schmalenberger said, ``and she opened her eyes and looked right at me.

``They are not like the typical `Yogi Bear' hibernation you think of. They are alert, and when you deal with female bears who have nursing cubs, you never know what is going to happen. But she just looked at me, and I started backing out as slowly but as quickly as I could.''

Black bears and grizzly bears once roamed California. The grizzly has long been extinct in California (an irony, since it graces the state flag). But the black bear - which can vary greatly in color from brown to cinnamon to even dark blond - is thriving, with a healthy population in Northwestern California.

Average females weigh 120 to 160 pounds, males 250 to 300 pounds, and can measure up to 7 feet tall. Yet while they have powerful jaws and huge, ripping claws, bears are usually timid animals when it comes to human contact.

``I certainly don't want to get the message to the public that these things are puppy dogs,'' said Burton, who has been studying bears since 1972. ``They are a pretty formidable animal. But they want to avoid humans as much as possible.''

For the study team, entering dens isn't always necessary; unless a bear's collar has to be changed, it's the last resort. If the biologists scare off the female, for example, she might leave the den and the cubs will starve. Sometimes it's possible to count the cubs just from the sound of the nursing. But when a den absolutely has to be entered and there are cubs present, things really get interesting. Den work begins the first of February, just a few weeks after cubs are born.

The female is tranquilized with a long, syringe-tipped jab stick, making it easier for the biologist to change the collar if necessary and to turn and manipulate the female bear to check her condition and compare the data to past ``physicals'' if she had already been collared and followed over the years. The cubs, which can number anywhere from one to four, are not sedated and are very alert.

``It's a regular `Romper Room' in there for those guys,'' said Koch, now the DFG's regional manager in Redding who keeps abreast of the study he once was a vital part of as a young biologist.

``They're like little Tasmanian devils,'' Schmalenberger said. ``They are about the size of a Lab puppy, with claws that are way oversized. Tiny body and huge claws and they stand on their mother's back and swing at you all the time. It's just their protective nature.''

But the biologists eventually come to know some of the bears.

``You form an attachment,'' Schmalenberger recounted. ``You see new scars on them, either from breeding or fighting. You see the cubs and how the mother takes care of them and where they pick their dens. You get to know them pretty well, so much that there are a lot of times I will see a bear free-roaming and say, `There goes No. 3927.'

``Of course, I suppose the bear is probably thinking, `There's that guy again. He's going to come after me, trap me and put a collar on me.' ''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (Color) Tracking California black bears can become an up-close-and-personal occupation for biologists determining offspring and survival rates, especially when they must enter dens.

Terri Thuente/Daily News