ALEXANDRIA — Dr. Andy Tri is the DNR Bear Project Leader with the Minnesota DNR’s Forest Wildlife and Populations Research Group. He’s also a Certified Wildlife Biologist (CWB).
He joined a handful of members of Prairie Lakes Audubon Chapter of West Central Minnesota on March 11, 2025, to talk about bears in Minnesota.
While black bears are rare in West Central Minnesota, Tri says those that have found their way here are pretty happy about it. “Oak resources — acorns — are the number one thing bears like to eat in the fall,” says Tri. “Also American hazelnuts — everyone likes those.”
West Central Minnesota has good habitat for the few bears that find their way this far south and east. There are more oaks that produce acorns, more abundant berry production in the open canopies of West Central Minnesota, and more crops.
"Corn yields have tripled,” says Tri, “and acres planted have increased 200%. Not all bears consume corn, but the ones who do seem to like it — a lot.”
In fact, all that abundant food means the biggest bears in Minnesota live in the transition zone between the north woods and the former prairies.
And who would have thought this area used to be grizzly habitat? “6,000-8,000 years ago, much of Minnesota was prairie and there were more grizzlies then,” says Tri. “That said, there isn’t too much to go on with historical records, etc. When Minnesota became a territory, certainly black bears were common in the forested regions of Minnesota and some were out on the prairie edge, along riparian corridors. Grizzlies occupied the prairies and black bears kept to the forests. We had grizzlies in western Minnesota around 1881 near the southern part of Itasca State Park.”
In his “A Pioneer History of Becker County Minnesota,” Alvin H. Wilcox writes of a Native American named North-Wind who encountered a grizzly a few miles south of Lake Itasca in Becker County. As you might imagine, it ended badly for the bear and her three cubs. North-Wind estimated she was at least 700 pounds — roughly the size of a cow.
Tri also took some time to explain the BearWise program . It’s spread to 40 states now and it’s geared to helping people and bears live safely next to one another.
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Incidentally, Andy Tri says when grizzlies were around in the 1800s, they ate elk, bison, and deer for meat, and berries and nuts for veggie/fruit options. “Hard to say exactly, but similar to what grizzlies eat now in Glacier and Yellowstone,” he says.
And has anyone ever suggested trying to reintroduce them to the Great Plains?
“I’m sure someone has,” says Tri, “ but I can’t think of anyone in recent history. The prairies are no longer prairies. It would be much harder now than before, and the overall prey density is much, much lower than it was at the time, as is the overall food availability.”
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