{"id":164992,"date":"2025-08-21T23:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T23:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/164992\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T23:15:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T23:15:10","slug":"multiple-black-bear-sightings-reported-in-east-texas-authorities-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/164992\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple black bear sightings reported in East Texas, authorities warn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Multiple sightings of black bears have been reported this month across East Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sightings have been confirmed in Cherokee, Anderson, Panola and Rusk counties, Texas Parks and Wildlife<\/a> said Thursday. The closest to North Texas is Anderson County, roughly 110 miles southeast of Dallas.<\/p>\n

Although black bears are native to Texas<\/a>, parks officials said East Texas is not home to a resident population of black bears. The bear \u2014 or bears \u2014 likely came from a neighboring state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time of year, young bears are leaving their mothers and may end up in unusual places,\u201d the agency said in a news release.<\/p>\n

Breaking News<\/p>\n

Get the latest breaking news from North Texas and beyond.<\/p>\n

Black bears are designated as a threatened species in Texas, and it is illegal to kill, injure, capture or transport one. Penalties for doing so include jail time and fines of $12,000. <\/p>\n

In a video<\/a> posted to Facebook, Kati Krouse, vice chair of the Texas Black Bear Alliance, said the bears captured by game cameras appear to be young.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how old. We don\u2019t know how it got here. We don\u2019t know any of that,\u201d Krouse said. \u201cAs you know, East Texas is thick and perfect bear habitat, and so it could have come from anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas parks authorities said bears are not typically aggressive but should be left alone. If you see a bear, the agency said to remain calm, stay far away, do not run and never attempt to feed or restrain it.<\/p>\n

Bears once roamed Texas, but a combination of unregulated hunting and loss of habitat caused them to virtually disappear<\/a> by the mid-1940s. Bears now live around Guadalupe Mountains National Park and in Big Bend National Park<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Multiple sightings of black bears have been reported this month across East Texas. Sightings have been confirmed in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":164993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3425,5312,159,358,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-164992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-parks","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115069303143693905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}