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After white-tailed deer hunting, no big-game species draws the interest of Pennsylvania sportsmen like black bears. The Keystone State is renowned for its bruin-hunting opportunities, as well as the extremely large bears it gives up annually.
Over the years, the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) has expanded its bear hunting opportunities to help keep the state’s growing bruin population in check, with harvests climbing, on average, over the past two decades. In fact, in 2019 sportsmen took 4,657 bruins, the most ever in a single year. Last year, however, hunters took less than 3,000 bears, the lowest total in 16 years.
According to the PGC website, preliminary data indicates hunters took 2,919 bears during the 2023 hunting seasons, which is down from the 3,171 taken in 2022 and the lowest harvest since 2007, when 2,362 bears were taken.
Although the harvest is down, it’s worth noting that the state’s bear harvest sometimes fluctuates greatly from year to year depending on a variety of factors such as hunter participation and effort, weather conditions during the primary hunting seasons and the availability of preferred food sources. Plus, the more liberal hunting seasons in recent years, including the addition of a muzzleloader and special firearms hunt and the expansion of archery season hunting opportunities, have given sportsmen more chances than ever to tag a bear.
Impacts on the harvest
PGC Black Bear Program Specialist Emily Carrollo said that two main factors likely affected the bear harvest in 2023. First, the PGC eliminated the extended hunting season opportunity in five Wildlife Management Units in 2023 to stabilize the bear populations in those areas because of overharvest concerns. Those WMUs — 1B, 2C, 4A, 4B and 4D — didn’t offer extended season opportunities for the first time since 2016, when they were first included in that season.
“The intention of the extended season is to help harvest more bears to stabilize local populations,” Carrollo said. “These WMUs saw population declines over the last few years with the introduction of these early seasons, and it was decided the extended season opportunity was no longer needed to achieve management goals in those WMUs.
“Since 2019, the extended season harvest in these five WMUs averaged 375 bears per year… Thus, even adding the lowest total harvest from 2020 (223 bears) between these five WMUs to our preliminary season total of 2,919 for 2023, we would have a total harvest of 3,142 bears harvested throughout the state, which is very similar to (the previous) year’s harvest.”
The second factor affecting the bear harvest was good mast production across much of the state, providing plenty of food for bears.
“Multiple research studies have found that during years when mast producing species are abundant/highly available on the landscape — like oaks here in PA — and are also highly productive during a season — like oaks this past fall — total harvest numbers are often lower than average,” Carrollo said. “It is believed this is because when natural food resources are low, bears are more likely to move greater distances on the landscape during the fall to find food.
“Bears are also in ‘hyperphagia’ during the fall, which is a critical time for packing on pounds for the winter den season, so bears are really focused on finding food during this time of the year. Thus, if bears are more frequently moving on the landscape to find food during poor mast years, the more likely they become to run across a hunter.”
As Pennsylvania’s bear hunting opportunities have evolved, there have also been shifts in when sportsmen are harvesting bruins, with the harvest now fairly evenly distributed across the various seasons. For example, in 2023, 1,234 bears were taken during the muzzleloader, archery and special firearms seasons, while 1,088 were harvested during the statewide, four-day firearms hunt and another 592 were taken during the extended bear hunt.
Looking ahead
Pennsylvania has one of the most well-respected black bear programs in the country and Carrollo has been monitoring the bruin harvest data carefully, with a focus on the early bear-hunting seasons to ensure that they are sustainable.
In 2019, a multi-year study was launched in the Sproul State Forest in the north-central part of the state to understand adult female bear survival and harvest vulnerability, while since 2020 the PGC has undertaken efforts to update and improve its bear population modeling and monitoring. Carrollo noted both projects have provided information and results that will be used to make recommendations for next year’s hunting seasons.
“The PGC has always had one of the best harvest monitoring programs throughout the black bear range, and we are fortunate to know exactly how many bears are harvested each year along with other information like gender, age and size of all black bears harvested, which all goes into monitoring efforts,” Carrollo said. “Thus, we have great information on harvest trends for the last 40 years that helps us better understand the black bear population and how to structure harvest opportunities.”
Carrollo encourages people who want to learn more about the black bear population status and proposed 2024 hunting seasons to check out the PGC’s Board of Game of Commissioners meeting on Jan. 26. During the meeting, the biologist will offer a presentation that goes in-depth into the harvest and current population estimate, as well as discuss the proposed bear-season structure. The meeting is open to the public, and it’s also livestreamed via the PGC’s website and social media platforms.
“Black bears are a resource that belong to all Pennsylvanians, and I’ll always use the most relevant and updated data and research to make the most informed management decisions,” Carrollo said. “I do truly appreciate working with a species so many Pennsylvanians care deeply about, and I share that passion just as much.”
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