ASHTABULA COUNTY – In early June, Ohio Division of Wildlife and Gantchoff Lab at the University of Dayton experts worked to place a radio collar on a 576-pound, transient male black bear in Ashtabula County.
Equipping the bear with the radio collar is part of an ongoing study taking place in the State of Ohio.
Experts assume this young adult bear was in the Buckeye State for breeding, according to an Ohio Division of Wildlife Facebook post.
With the collar, his movements and behavior can now be easily tracked to help inform the ongoing research.
“Staff biologist Katie Dennison said that she ‘didn’t expect to see a male bear this big’ in Ohio. She assumed he was in the area specifically for breeding purposes. When asked about the age of the bear, she described him as being ‘young middle aged, but definitely an adult.’ Black bears can live 20 to 30 years in Ohio and the Midwest,” reads the Ohio Division of Wildlife Facebook post.
Tory Westall is a PhD student from the University of Dayton studying black bears in Ohio.
She shared some information about the study and its purpose.
“Over the last few years, black bear reports in Ohio have increased significantly, prompting a need to investigate their distribution and habitat requirements within the state,” Westall said. “Recolonizing populations are frequently returning to degraded and/or fragmented habitats, and understanding their ecology is important to ensuring the population persists.”
Dr. Mariela Gantchoff, University of Dayton (UD), and Katie Dennisen, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife (ODNR), applied for a grant to partially fund a doctoral student to research bears in Ohio.
“I joined the Gantchoff Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Lab at UD in January 2025 and have completed two field seasons so far,” Westall said.
Westall said she is a year and a half into a five-year program.
“I will be conducting field work to gather data and collar bears for another two summers before focusing on writing my dissertation. I am investigating distribution and habitat suitability, identifying source population(s) through genetic analysis, determining population trajectory and carrying capacity, and evaluating black bear diet in Ohio,” Westall said. “Understanding what resources bears need in Ohio will inform management and conservation policies to ensure the population persists.”
With the study, Westall said they are interested in any black bears that live in Ohio.
“There are some habitat differences between the northeast and southeast portions of the state, and I am interested in how these differences affect their distribution,” Westall said.
They have collared five black bears in Ohio since the summer of 2024.
“The most recent bear was an adult male on the younger side who weighed 570 pounds,” Westall said. “He will likely weigh 800 pounds in the fall!”
She said they are collaring black bears to gather information about habitat selection and movement across Ohio’s landscape.
“The collars take a GPS locations every 90 minutes and are worn for about a year and half to ensure we get hibernation and reproductive data,” Westall said.
She addressed how the collars may affect the bears.
“There is always some concern over the size of the collar, but really the collars must be less than 5% of the animals’ body weight. With bears, the collars are usually closer to 1-3% of their body weight, which is the equivalent of a 150-pound person wearing clothing, shoes, wallet/purse, phone, etc.,” Westall said.
The collars are also temporary.
“There is a scheduled drop-off mechanism, a remote drop-off mechanism and a piece of cotton banding that rots over time,” Westall said. “These fail safes ensure we can remove the collar from the animal without having to capture it again.”
She said the information gathered through the collar is invaluable, as it allows them to model habitat suitability across Ohio to determine what resources they require and how to improve existing forests to help the population grow.
With Wesfall and the others involved in the study interested in sightings from any county in Ohio, people in Ashtabula County can assist by reporting bear sightings to ODNR’s Wildlife Reporting Tool as soon as possible.
The tool can be found at https://tinyurl.com/3sv4dxma
Westall explained the importance of reporting the sighting quickly.
“Bears have very large home ranges, so if we don’t hear about a sighting for a week, there is little chance the bear is still in the area,” Westall said.
She said reporting repeat visits “is really important.”
“A single report can be a bear passing through, but repeated visits tell us the bear frequently stays nearby. We have a better chance of catching a bear the closer we can get to its favorite spots,” Westall said.
In addition to reported sightings, Westall said she also is interested in fresh scat samples or any hair samples that may be found after a bear comes through.
“I conducted over 30 miles of walking surveys this summer looking for scat using scent dogs trained for bear scat. It was fairly successful, and I am hoping to do it again next year in more areas,” Westall said.
If someone has property with large sections of forest on it or nearby and has seen bears this year, study participants may be interested in setting up one of their stations of hair shares and cameras.
For more information, people may contact Westall at westallt1@udayton.edu.
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