GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST -- Scarcely bigger than a kitten, the black bear cub tucked away with its slumbering mother was as anonymous as any other woodland creature Tuesday morning.
By lunchtime, the cub had a new identity - microchip 472C4E7628 - as did each of its three siblings, joining supermarket produce, express packages and automobiles in a world where everything is inventoried and coded.
Their mother gave up her anonymity last month. Decked out in a white radio collar, the 238-pound sow broadcasts her position to wildlife biologists who manage the state's 500-plus bears.
Bears, once listed as an endangered species in Maryland, are thriving and moving east as development booms in their longtime habitat in Garrett and western Allegany counties.
Where it used to be rare to see a bear east of U.S. 15 in Frederick County, sightings are more common these days, says Harry Spiker, the leader of the Department of Natural Resources black bear team.
"Eastern Allegany has been on the fringe for the last 20 years or so, and it's now firmly in bear territory," Spiker says. "I would not be surprised to see them move into Carroll and Harford counties. The Baltimore County watershed, the three reservoirs, there's no reason why bears wouldn't settle there. Aberdeen [Proving Ground] is prime bear habitat. It's only a matter of time, and we want to be there when it happens."
The state has responded to the migration by proposing an expansion of the bear hunt this fall, now in its third year, to include eastern Allegany County and the 44,000-acre Green Ridge State Forest.
To get a better count as they plot the bears' eastward progress, biologists are using two new tracking and identifying devices. These cubs are part of a pilot project to see whether tiny microchips embedded in the skin between the shoulder blades can replace the large plastic ear tags used for decades.
Typically, bears are located and tagged in winter months as they hibernate. But while the traditional tags are fine for adult bears, they're too large for tiny ears, meaning the cubs have to be disturbed a second time when they are older.
The microchips are called PIT tags, short for Passive Integrated Transponder. Each one is about the size of a grain of long-grain rice and costs $8. The tags can be read by biologists using hand-held scanners, much the way vets read similar internal ID chips in dogs and cats. A hibernating bear doesn't have to be disturbed to read a tag, putting less stress on both animals and humans.
