Maine's black bear monitoring project — one of nation's longest-running bear studies — turns 50 this year. Scientists say the data collected have been an essential tool in helping to manage the state's healthy bear population.

State bear biologist Caitlin Drasher says when the study began in 1975 , not much was known about black bears in Maine, including how many there were, where they denned, or how they lived. To fill the gap in information, the project, started by research biologist Roy Hugie, set out to track female bears with radio collars, and count and tag cubs by crawling into dens.

Drasher says a half century later, a lot more is known about the more than 25,000 black bears in the state. Thanks to the huge data set from this field study, combined with harvest data collected du

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