Bears spend much of their time looking for food, and they are not choosy, gorging on insects, berries, nuts, small mammals, ham sandwiches, and garbage with equal relish. Despite this, the chief natural factor limiting a bear population is the food supply. Dr. Lynn Rogers has found that, contrary to popular belief, so-called garbage bears – those that visit town dumps or campsites – do not lose their ability to forage successfully for wild foods but are simply supplementing their diets with easy pickings. In fact, these enterprising bears grow faster, mature sooner, and reproduce earlier than those that depend only on wild foraging. Rogers has also found that dump-fed bears are the strongest and largest in the population. He and his crew once captured a male bear that weighed in at 611 pounds. But easy living for the bears carries a price: those that stalk garbage dumps are easier targets for hunters and those that visit camps – if not injure – visitors .Some state wildlife agencies capture “nuisance” bears that have become too chummy with people and cast them off to less populated parts of the forest. The removal programmes do not always work; bears released 100 miles or more from their place of capture have reappeared in their old haunts.