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Mention "Bear" in Alabama and the first thing that comes to most minds is a big guy wearing a houndstooth hat leaning against a goal post before the opening kickoff.

Alabamians don’t know much about an animal that is indigenous to a state better known for cotton and cattle than something in a Daniel Boone television series.

Bears are supposed to be big white things living in the Arctic Circle or huge creatures known as grizzlies that prowl the forests far from the little Washington County community of Leroy.

The Alabama variety is a baby cousin of those two species and they’ve been living in the Southwest section of the state for many years.

There aren’t many of them left. Some estimates say only a few hundred at most live in Alabama. They aren’t considered endangered, but a group of environmentalists have banded together to see that they are protected.

Daniel Powell of Leroy holds plaster casts of bear prints found in southwest Alabama.

Gov. Bob Riley recently signed a designation recognizing the Black Bear as Alabama’s official state mammal. Pictured with Gov. Riley, center, are students from Escambia County Middle School; Tim Gothard, Executive Director of Alabama Wildlife Federation; Daniel Powell and Shirley West, director of Turtle Point Science Center.

Gov. Bob Riley signed that designation into law a few weeks ago. For the men and women who have worked so hard to see it happen, they couldn’t be happier.

Many of the Alabama Black Bear Alliance members have never seen a bear up close and personal, but that doesn’t diminish their appreciation for them or their desire to keep them alive and reproductive in the woods.

"I’d love to see one and if I stumble across one, fine," said Daniel Powell, one of Alabama’s leading environ-mentalists. "My main concern is to keep ’em wild. People don’t need to be inviting a bear into their yard."

He hunted, he fished and he kept looking for his first Black Bear in the flesh as he and they moved through the woods. It never happened, but he was never disappointed.

Powell, who describes himself as "a hunter and consumptive wildlife user," doesn’t kill for pleasure and his hackles still rise a bit when he thinks about a man who shot and killed two small bears many years ago. The killings angered him almost as much as the slap on the wrist he said a judge gave the "hunter" who shot the pair.

"He drove them around and showed them off to people," said Powell. "I love to hunt, but what that guy did was ridiculous."

Powell, who was President of the AWF a decade ago and is known around the state for his environmental efforts, has attended many conferences on the Southeast bear population.

"The collars had batteries that last two years and are designed to fall off when they are no longer useful," Powell said. "We weighed and measured the bears and also pulled a tooth to determine their age."

He said Alabama’s Black Bears range in size from about 160 pounds for females and up to 250 pounds for males. They pale in comparison to Polar Bears and Grizzlies. Some of those bears can exceed 1,000 pounds.

Powell said bears, especially females, have a tendency to remain where they are and rarely wander outside of a specific area. "There’s an old country song that says in the bear world, the male roams and the females stay at home," he said.

Intelligence is a trait that bears seem to pick up from an early age, he said. "I think they learned a long time ago that if they have interaction with people, they know who the loser will be," meaning a bear must know that two-legged critters with rifles and shotguns can end its life in a second.

Although bears have been spotted as far north as Bibb County, Powell said most live in Southwest Alabama where there’s plenty of woods and berries.

What worries Powell and other environmentalists around the country is the encroachment of civilization into wildlife areas that allowed animals to roam freely for centuries.

This bear carving greets visitors outside Daniel Powell’s land management office in the Washington County community of Leroy.

"As people build houses on tracts historically used by these bear, avoiding people will become harder to do," Powell said, in an article for Alabama Wildlife magazine. "Additionally, as these homeowners come to realize that bear are just outside their backyards, many may try to get a viewing opportunity by feeding them. Sooner or later, this will backfire."

The American black bear is perhaps the most common of the species in the country with an estimated population of more than 300,000, according to the Washington, D.C.-based "Defenders of Wildlife."

American black bears are found in 32 states, Mexico and Canada. The species is considered adaptable to most climates and habitats.

Before explorers arrived in the New World, black bears pretty much had the run of the land in North America. The population in the 1500s was placed at about two million. Civilization has sharply reduced the black bear population but it has not been as severe as the grizzly that is relatively rare these days.

The black bear hibernates up to seven months a year. Their preferred den sites include small caves, crevices or beneath other protective terrain. During hibernation, a black bear’s heartbeat drops by 50 percent.

The gestation period for black bears is about 220 days and cubs are born in January or February in the mother’s winter den. At birth, cubs are blind and deaf without much of a developed coat. Many weigh less than a pound when they are born.

Among many environmental concerns is the hunting of black bears in some parts of the country for alleged medical "cure-alls" derived from the animal’s organs.

Black bear gallbladders are considered hot items in Asian markets. Some in that part of the world view that organ as a ticket to improved health and a longer life.

Since Alabama doesn’t have many black bears, it’s unlikely poachers will be hunting them to supply Asian markets.

Powell and others, however, are worried that continued encroachment of developers on black bear habitats could reduce the current estimate of animals even more in the coming years.

In addition to developers, Powell is worried about any efforts to "tame" black bears by feeding them from back porches or other areas around houses.

"Whenever I’m asked to say something about the subject, I’ll say: ‘Don’t feed the bear.’"

Powell likes to refer to a comment by Conrad Hilton, who made a fortune building hotels across the country, to illustrate his point about bears.

"When (Hilton) was asked if he’d like to say something about his hotels, he said ‘The shower curtain goes inside the tub,’" Powell said.

By that, Hilton suggested that common sense be used when taking a shower or doing anything that might be questionable such as tossing garbage outside and waiting for a bear to come along to eat it.

"People should not invite bear into their backyard," said Powell, who always refers to them in the singular tense. "If you feed one, there will be trouble."

According to Powell, "everyone wants to interact and see wildlife, but there should be limits on everything and that includes getting too close to bear."

If you’d like more information about the Alabama Black Bear or would like to report a sighting, call the Alabama Wildlife Federation at 1-800-822-9453.

Alvin Benn is a freelance writer from Selma.