Apostle Islands Re-Opens Area That Had Been Closed Due To Wandering Bear

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore re-opened one of its islands to the public on Monday, following the departure of a bear that had been spotted wandering near a docking area.

Oak Island has the most bears of any of the Apostles, with about half of the 40 or so in the 21-island group. Apostle Islands resources manager Julie Van Stappen said they closed the dock area two weeks ago because of a hungry old bruin that had reportedly been poking its nose around places it shouldn’t have been.

“It would go on the dock and kind of look into windows of boats and things like that,” she said. “That’s not a good thing to happen, so that’s why we closed the island.”

Van Stappen said that the bear may have had issues with its hearing or sight.

“We haven’t seen the bear for a few days, so we’re hoping it wandered off,” she said.

She said there are lots of reasons bears get into trouble. Sometimes it’s a young male bear that is kicked out of the den by their mother.

“They’re kind of like teenager bears,” Van Stappen said. “They’re not really quite sure what they’re doing and where they’re going, so often time they get into trouble. But sometimes it’s the older ones too that are just having a hard time. And sometimes we’ve had bears go into more developed areas to get away from other bears.”

Van Stappen said they have to close parts or all of an island about once a year.