Slow compared to some years, but the bears are on the baits. Fun week!

Nice video . Any thoughts on the tagged one's - Garbage bear's the DNR re-homed or study bear's ?

They are definitely research bears I am going to find out more.

Wet years are tougher then dry for sure.

Keep plugging away Bernie.
How many hunting this year?

Bear hunters in Minnesota are being asked not to shoot bears with brightly colored ear tags, like this bear (which also is covered in sticky seeds).Contributed / Teresa Berg

Same every year.... they ask/ recommend hunters Not shoot tagged bears

You can but they discourage it.

I can't seem to transfer the link or photo I have to this year's article

https://www.wadenapj.com/sports/nor...s-not-to-shoot-collared-ear-tagged-bears

[img]http://https://www.wadenapj.com/sports/northland-outdoors/minnesota-dnr-asks-hunters-not-to-shoot-collared-ear-tagged-bears[/img]

Top one will open

Disappoints me seeing a wild animal that has been tagged/colored.

Under the "we're studying them" mantra
.

Bears are bears. What more do (they) need to know?

Five hunters this year.

I shot a tagged and collared bear in Alaska years ago. Turned the collar/tags back in and the biologist sent me a detailed map showing the location of every interaction the department had with the bear along with age, health and weight estimates. The previous winter, the bear had denned twenty miles from where I shot it.

Wondering if anyone recognizes the button on my grandson's shirt at 1:56 in the video.

No one?

Looks to be this year’s MnTrappers Association convention button. Maybe?

Seen an article in local paper from the MN DNR . Asking hunters to take a moment to look over bear's before harvesting them for collars or tags . And although hunters have every right to harvest a tagged/collared bear they ask hunters to pass on them . If hunter chooses to harvest said bear . That they report it so they can collect the information from it . Also said when skinning a tagged bear to watch for a small heart monitor that is under the skin on left side of bear

X2

Enjoyed the video- The smaller yellow ear tag in the one video might not be a research bear but a bear that was released from a wildlife rehab center as a juvenile, I think they have a different color format and tag style than DNR cattle tags.

Ding ding. He loves it.

I think they put out that same press release each year. The tagged bears aren't a big deal but the bears with collars provide some valuable info. This year, the hunting is tough and people aren't going to be selective.

Tagged bears so what. Many times I’ve caught tags on camera and called Karen Noyce at the DNR with numbers and she gave me great info on the bears. She appreciated as well because they track the travel patterns and migration of bears in Minnesota. Few have actual gps tags or at least did.
The vast majority they tag are sows, like 99 to 1 but a few years back I had an incredible bruiser on bait that was a boar. She knew that bear well from the bear center over at Cook.
If it teaches something great, at least some of the crazy money we pay to the DNR these days goes towards the animals.

Slow baits yea, a wet year has put a lot of natural food up in the bush. Plenty warm with it keeps a lot of them from moving around too much. Patience and deeper baiting to get back to them helps.

Osky

Karen retired a few years ago. Most of the tagged bears are males, more than 75% according to the DNR bear biologist Andy Tri. He has provided me with a lot of info on the tagged bears which I will put in an upcoming video. You can't see numbers on them, if there are any. The info he gave me was by the colors of the tags, how many and in which ear.

There are no GPS tags, just GPS collars and they are obvious.

Hope for Hot n Dry conditions for opening week if that's when the hunters are coming.