Menominee students learn lessons in how to live with, respect bears, research environment
KESHENA - Encountering bears can be a relatively common occurrence for many people just strolling on the Menominee Reservation.
“There’s a level of respect that we won’t mess with them and they won’t mess with us,” said Calvin Waukau, 15, a sophomore at Menominee Indian High School in Keshena. “But one time I turned the corner and came face-to-face with one. It was pretty scary. … Them bears get pretty big.”
Waukau is one of about 50 students at the school to join the recently formed S.U.N. Squad, which stands for Sustainability Under One Nation, and collecting data on black bears in the Menominee Forest was one of their recent activities in the field.
The club is led by environmental science teacher Christine Fossen-Rades, who started working at the school in fall 2019 after working 24 years at De Pere High School.
“I’m really fortunate to end up in Keshena, where they value educational support,” she said.
Fossen-Rades said with more focus on teaching strictly out of textbooks for higher test scores and fewer hands-on field studies she never had the opportunity in her previous position to practice experiential education, which is what she was trained in.
She said both she and other Menominee Indian High School educators share the philosophy that it’s important for students to get out and see and touch what they’re learning about.
And Fossen-Rades said Menominee students have a unique opportunity to learn so much about environmental science in their own backyard that many other students don’t always have.
“People from all over the world come to Menominee to research sustainable forestry,” she said.
Tribal land management techniques have made the Menominee Forest one of the healthiest woodlands in the world, creating a place where black bears and other native animal and plant species can thrive.
“I think it is not by accident that the Menominee Forest is home to several threatened and endangered species,” said Don Reiter, wildlife biologist for the Menominee Nation.
He said a healthy black bear population needs a healthy hardwood forest and wetland habitat to forage for their omnivore diets, which includes grass, nuts, berries, insects and small mammals.
“The Menominee Reservation has all of these,” Reiter said.
The Menominee Forest has enough habitat space to sustain one bear per square mile, so theoretically, about 360 black bears could live in the forest for its 360 square miles.
But Reiter doesn’t think the black bear population has reached that goal based on research, but it is still at a healthy population.
“Male black bears have a home range of 125 square miles and bears tend to roam northeast Wisconsin at different times of the year,” he said. “It would be hard to develop a population analysis procedure for just the Menominee Reservation.”
Black bear research on the reservation started in 1998 by the Menominee Conservation Fish and Wildlife Department assisted by a researcher, Dr. Ray Anderson, from UW-Stevens Point.
Data collected from a sedated bear includes measuring body weight, monitoring vital signs and collecting a blood sample for genetic analysis to help create rules and regulation governing black bear management on the reservation.
“Understanding bears will help us maintain healthy bear populations and reduce bear-human conflicts,” Reiter said. “The black bear is an important part of Menominee history. The Bear Clan is considered a principal or major clan with several sub clans. The Bear assumed the civil duties throughout the tribe, which generally meant they were speakers for the tribe.”
Sidney Penass, a sophomore and S.U.N. Squad student, took particular interest in the school group’s assistance with the bear research.
The club recollared and collected data from a sedated mama bear that had made a den into the roots of an uprooted tree.
Penass got down on the ground with the sedated bear and hugged “her people” because she is Bear Clan.
Student Piper Waupoose, a junior, said the experience wasn’t scary at all because the bear looked like it was in a deep sleep.
“I think it’s really fun working with animals,” she said.
Encountering a fully aware bear is a different matter.
Reiter said people should watch bears from a distance and respect their right to live in Menominee.
But if bears happen to be too close for comfort, he said people should make noise and wave their arms to let the bear know they’re there.
“Bears normally leave an area once they know a human is around,” Reiter said.
But if someone happens to surprise a bear at close range, they should back away slowly and not run away because that could activate its predator instincts and a person should not play dead because black bears eat dead things.
The S.U.N. Squad also has upcoming field studies involving sturgeon and other fish, and members are working on a project to install solar panels at the high school.
“It’s about getting kids to connect to Mother Earth,” Fossen-Rades said.
Menominee School District administrators are also happy with the club's learning opportunities.
"Hands-on, experiential learning works for effectively with our students," said Wendell Waukau, superintendent of the Menominee Indian School District. "They are much more engaged, especially when the learning is connected to learn their natural environment and Indigenous culture."
Frank Vaisvilas is a Report For America corps member based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette covering Native American issues in Wisconsin. He can be reached at 920-228-0437 or email@example.com, or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA.