Hunters urged not to shoot ear-tagged, radio-collared research bears (published August 19, 2025)

The Minnesota bear hunting season opens Monday, Sept. 1, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is once again asking hunters to avoid shooting marked research bears. These bears have large, colorful ear tags and wear radio collars.

Researchers with the Minnesota DNR are monitoring 50 radio-collared black bears across the state, especially in bear hunting zones 27, 45 and parts of the no-quota zone. Most of the radio-collared bears live in or near the Chippewa National Forest, Camp Ripley, the Brainerd/Baxter area, and Duluth. However, the bears also range widely from these sites. All but three of these bears are female.

“We ask hunters to avoid shooting these research bears,” said Andrew Tri, Minnesota DNR bear research scientist. “These collared bears give us much of the data we use in bear management and are most valuable to us when they are collared for multiple years. Thank you to hunters who have opted not to take collared bears in past years and hunters who choose not to harvest collared bears this season.”

A key point of the research is to look at year-to-year changes in natural food supplies and how those changes affect individual bears in terms of their habitat use, physical condition, denning, reproduction and interactions with people. This research is not designed to evaluate mortality from hunting. Tagging new bears every year to replace any killed cannot substitute for long-term data on individual bears.

The collars the Minnesota DNR uses in this research have GPS units. Periodic GPS coordinates of collared bears’ locations are either uploaded to a satellite or stored in the collar, and DNR researchers download this data when they visit a bear in its den. Each bear provides several thousand data points per year.

The bear’s coat often hides the collar, especially in the fall, and most collars are black. But all collared bears have large (3 x 2 inch), colorful ear tags. The tags should be plainly visible on trail cameras or when a bear is at a bait. Example photos of collared bears with ear tags and a summary of pertinent research findings can be found online under the link “Importance of Radio-collared Bears” on the Minnesota DNR bear management webpage.

Minnesota DNR officials recognize hunters might not be able to see a radio collar or ear tags in some situations. For this reason, taking a bear with a radio collar is legal; however, pausing briefly to get a clear view of the bear’s head can help reveal whether it has large ear tags, which indicates that it is collared.

If a hunter does take a collared bear, they are asked to look for a small, implanted heart monitor under the skin on the left side of the chest. This device contains valuable information stored in memory and looks like a small, silver capsule that is approximately the width of a paper clip. If a hunter finds this device while skinning the bear, they are asked to submit it to DNR with the collar.

Hunters may see bears with very small ear tags (1 x 1/4 inch). These bears are not collared and may be part of other ongoing research projects. It is legal to take a bear with small ear tags, but please call the Minnesota DNR to report the tags.

The Minnesota DNR asks any hunters who do shoot a collared or ear-tagged bear to call the Minnesota DNR Wildlife Research Office in Grand Rapids at 218-328-8879 or 218-328-8874 to report it and coordinate the pickup or drop-off of the collar and heart monitor, if applicable.