For most of the twentieth century, black bears in Tennessee meant the eastern mountains. The Smokies held them. The rest of the state did not, and had not for long enough that the absence stopped being remarked on.
That is changing, steadily and westward, and the plateau counties are where it is most visible. Bears are moving into country that has the habitat, has had it the whole time, and has not had the animals for three or four generations.
I have spent a lot of days on plateau trails and the change is legible in small ways before it is legible in the data. More bear-proof latches on trash enclosures at trailheads. More conversations at the outfitter counter that start with somebody’s cousin.
The management questions are the interesting part and they do not have clean answers. A population recovering into places that have forgotten how to live alongside it produces conflict that reads as an emergency at the county level and as success at the state level, and both readings are correct. Neither side of that is being dishonest.
The anecdote supply on this subject is enormous and almost entirely useless. Everybody has a bear story and the stories have been getting better since about 2015.
So this piece will use the state’s own count and conflict-report data rather than the stories, and will talk to the people whose job is to answer the calls.