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Bears likely to eventually settle in Illinois, but ‘not anytime soon’

A Marion police officer snapped this photo of the bear near Interstate 57 in southern Illinois this summer. (Photo provided)

Illinois does not have a plan to reintroduce black bears to its wilderness, a state conservation police officer said, but he expects there will be a breeding population in the state “a considerable ways down the road” when female bears migrate to Illinois.
For now, there are just lone males roaming southern Illinois like the bear seen in the metro-east the first week of August and another one in southern Illinois in July, according to CPO Don Schachner.

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