On the sandy beaches of the Alabama Gulf Coast, swimmers and visitors are occasionally visited by creates not normally found around the ocean: black bears.

In the heavily wooded and swampy areas of Mobile and Baldwin counties, bears were once a mainstay decades ago. But after decades of over-hunting and habitat degradation, just a small colony of black bears remains in Southwest Alabama.

Black bears are historically native throughout Alabama — and in neighboring states of Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana — and were once found in nearly every county. After the Great Depression, when people frequently turned to wildlife to keep themselves alive, the bears were common only in Baldwin County and considered scarce in Mobile, Washington and Clarke counties, according to Marianne Gaudin, ou

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