As a biologist at Penn State, John conducted the first statewide scientific bear research program ever to be conducted in Pennsylvania. He wrote the state’s first bear management plan, which still remains in effect. The plan included: (1) the closing of the state wide bear hunting season in the early 1970's; (2) permanently reducing the length of the bear hunting season from 1 week to 1 - 3 days only; (3) maintaining the hunting season in the beginning of the week of Thanksgiving; (4) requiring the issuance of permits to bear hunters (5) creating statewide bear management zones; (6) developing aging techniques for bears, including the laboratory method for annular-sectioning of teeth and the extraction of premolar teeth for this purpose; (7) creating a system of statewide bear season check stations. As a result, the state’s bear population has grown from less than 2,000 bears in the 1970's to a current high of over 11,000. Today Pennsylvania prides itself in having one of the nation's most flourishing black bear populations as a result of John's research and management plan, which was fully in place and in operation when John left the bear project to conduct the state's first research on Pennsylvania's elk herd.