At that time there was very little knowledge about the black bear among academics in Taiwan. Wang Ying of the Department of Life Science at National Taiwan Normal University had done a preliminary survey of the distribution of black bears across the island, but that was about it. There wasn't even any basic data about the habits of black bears or their numbers.
當時台灣學界對黑熊所知甚少，僅有師大生物系教授王穎做過黑熊的全島分佈區域初步調查，但黑熊的生態習性、族群數量等基礎資料都付之闕如。