Game and Fish Warden Reports Rare Black Bear Encounter in State

Minot district game warden Shawn Sperling was halfway through his July 15, 2023, patrol when a call came in from a neighboring warden. The tone, Sperling noted, was the cheerful kind that signals an incoming handoff. He asked what was going on. The answer was three words: "You have a bear."

Sperling expected a punchline. North Dakota is not known for a robust black bear population, and the call came from a railway employee who had been checking rail lines near Minot when he spotted what he believed was a black bear stuck roughly 17 feet up in a small ash tree overhanging the Souris River. The employee thought the animal had been poached. When Sperling asked why, the reply was blunt: "It's not moving."

As Sperling drove toward the scene, the logistics were straightforward and none of them were appealing. Cutting the tree would send the bear into the river. Climbing up would require a ladder and a strong back. What he found resolved the problem entirely: the bear was a full-body taxidermy mount, ratchet-strapped to the branches.

The story, recounted in the North Dakota Game and Fish Department's "Behind the Badge" series and later highlighted by Northland Outdoors columnist and Game and Fish outreach biologist Doug Leier, underscores just how rare a confirmed black bear encounter is in the state. Rare, however, is not the same as impossible.

Game and Fish actively seeks public reports of bear sightings statewide. A quick photo from a phone, which can also document the exact location, is the most useful thing a witness can provide. The department asks residents not to approach any animal they cannot positively identify and to report sightings promptly to their district warden.

Households near wooded river corridors or shelter belts should eliminate common attractants: unsecured garbage, exposed livestock feed, and accessible bird feeders. Bears that are passing through, particularly in spring when they range widely after winter, tend to go where food is easiest to find.

Leier can be reached at dleier@nd.gov. North Dakota Game and Fish warden contacts by district are listed at gf.nd.gov.