Welcome to the Speak the Language Podcast presented by on X Hunt. This week we'll be taking

an in-depth look at a species that has been residing in the state of Mississippi since before

anyone that's listening to this episode has even been alive. It's a species that

seems to be either loved or hated and is very, very commonly misunderstood.

The goal of this entire episode is to garner a better understanding and acceptance for

this animal, a better understanding of why the great state of Mississippi and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks

has been working to restore it for over 20 years and a better understanding of what we may see

in the future.

It's time that we all learned a little bit more about bears.

Anthony Ballard, you are the Black Bear Program Coordinator in Mississippi.

Yes, sir.

So what's interesting about that to me, right from where my mind first goes and some of the conversations

that I often have with people just through talking about hunting or podcast topics or anything.

There's some folks that aren't even aware

that we have a Black Bear program in the state of Mississippi.

Yeah.

And that's been, since I came into this program that was something that I really came to understand pretty quickly was that people a fairly significant portion of the population,

mostly through social media.

I've seen this, like comments and stuff.

We have bears in the state, and it's something

that I feel like just recently coming

into this role that we can do a lot better job of is telling that story

...