There’s time left in the season, but Pennsylvania’s bear harvest so far is pretty low.
Photo: Pixabay
Don’t be surprised if Pennsylvania is home to more black bears in 2018 than ever before.
If so, it will be because of weather.
The state had an estimated 15,000 bears in 2000, said Mark Ternent, black bear biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. That jumped up to 18,000 in 2008 and to 20,000 in 2015.
That’s where it remains today.
“Each of those two population increases followed years when we had unusually low harvests,” Ternent said. “We ended up with a little bump in the population.”
We may see another one.
That’s because year’s bear harvest is behind schedule – significantly so – after the first day of the firearms bear season.
That’s usually the best day for hunters. In 2014, for example, they killed 1,623 bears on opening day. In 2015 they took 1,508 and in 2016 it was 1,297.
This year’s opening day – marked by fairly heavy rain in many places – saw a harvest of 666 bears as of Sunday afternoon. That could change, as harvest reports trickle in.
But that’s not a lot. In fact, it’s only a little more than half last year’s opening day take.
The archery bear harvest won’t make up the difference either.
In 2016, the archery bear season ran five days, a Monday through Friday, in mid-November, after the close of the archery deer season. Archers killed 225 bears.
This year, the season expanded to six days to include a Saturday. Most importantly, it coincided with the archery deer season.
No one – not even commission biologists – knew what that might mean, kill-wise.
But there were predictions hunters might take 800 to 1,000 bears.
That didn’t happen.
According to preliminary figures from the agency, archers took 464 bears. That’s more than double last year’s total, but not four times as high.
If one thing’s remained consistent, it’s that hunters are again killing large bears.
The Game Commission – and this is pretty cool – is posting bear harvest data in almost real time this year online.
It shows that heaviest bear killed is a 700-pound animal in Venango County. A 648-pound bear taken in Wayne County is the second largest so far.
Rifle hunters took both.
As for where bears – across all seasons – are being taken, Tioga County ranks first in the state with 88. Lycoming is second with 82, followed by Pike with 70, Clinton with 64 and Potter with 54.
Closer to home, Somerset and Fayette counties have produced 19 bears each, Butler eight, Cambria seven, Westmoreland six, Armstrong five, Indiana two and Allegheny one.
