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Bplott wrote:NO WAY!!! No how a fed bear ends up a dead bear....This could work in a non populated area but we have way to many people in the mtns all the time!!! People not being pigs and leaven there crap all over the mtns and camp grounds would help more then anything

Bplott, there are tons of people (non hunters) in Idaho where I hunt. They don't have the problems that we do. And they have WAY more bears. Just like Nolte said, the bears will stick around a mediocre area if there is a bait in it. Most bears would much rather eat off a bait pile in the middle of no where than go through a camp ground with 50 people in it looking for a meal. Just like Yarddog said. If it's so bad, why allow it at all?

Killing a bunch of sow bear is generally a sign of killing to many bear. Michigan's once robust bear numbers are a fraction of what they were. I go to Wisconsin to train dogs part of the time. It's like going back in time. Not that far back in time either. Michigan overharvested bear in the six or seven years. The population of bear that actually produce a cub is five years old. A sow bear will go into heat the first time at around three years old. Gestation and cub raising makes a sow five years old when she produces an independent bear. Male bear reach puberty at five years old. In Michigan The largest number of bear killed recently are one year old. Cubs! Not according to Michigan's Law according to me! Checking the number of mature boars killed in Michigan will make a bear person vomit! The bear model was first used on Drummond Isand. An Island in the great lakes. The bear numbers were reduced by over 90% in short order. The same bear management model is being used in other states. Michigan is laughing stock but even worse a bear management nightmare.....If you just want to kill something, find an animal that is prolific...deer, coons, rabbits , whatever! Killing a bear off a bait or once treed is not very difficult. I am a hound man that kills a bear every once and a while....Its about the dogs...not the kill. Without sufficiant bear numbers we are sol. I always wonder....how proud can you be shooting a small sow? Weigh it with the guts in and take a picture that distorts it's true size!!!

well said yooper,if we could only get the brains in lansing to listen.its sad how fqast the population is decreasing in my area the last 5 years.but when all you hear about is sows being killed by bait sitters,and a few stupid hound hunters ,and when you can buy leftover licenses over the counter!!!i guess thats what happens

Been absent from the site for a couple of years. Bearyooper called me this evening and told me about this excellent discussion and asked me to chime in. Sure glad to learn I'm still registered. Last time I was on here Nolte and I had some discussion about what's going on here in Michigan....and after hunting here he saw it first hand. Since then Bearyooper, myself and a handful of other concerned bear hunters got politically active and along with learning how to use the internet both USFS and MDNR are now living up to their obligation to regulate the commercial bear baiting/guiding. Still a long way to go, however.

Hope you folks don't mind my rambling a bit here. As pointed out in an earlier post, Wisconsin closed it bear season back in 1985. Mike Gappa, a former WDNR Wildlife Div. official told me the department was concerned about overharvest from 1981 through 1984. He said they were also troubled by the percentage of bears 3 years of age and younger being harvested...48.6% were 3 and under. In Michigan, based on bear tooth survey data we got from MDNR...the percentage of bears 3 years and younger that are currently being harvest is around 67%!

In order to counter BS coming from Michigan bear biologists I emailed back and forth with Dr. Lynn Rogers for his professional opinion on the high percentage of bears killed before even reaching breeding age. He referred to it as reckless management. We spread this information around to Michigan sportsmen. When the biologists could not refute it one biologist attacked Dr. Rogers character calling him an anti-hunter. Dr. Rogers also emailed saying it is very important to do bear population census every three years. Without the census he stated bear numbers can take a serious drop. We have an email letter from MDNR's lead furbear specialist basically saying their data will not support estimating the bear population at the bear Management Unit level. There are 11 Bear Management Units in Michigan...and they admit not having a population estimate for them. Yet, they decide how many bears should be harvested in the units each year. Mr. Bump also informed us on January 28, 2010 MDNR had revised the states bear population down several months earlier...from 18,000-19,000 down to 11,100 excluding cubs prehunt. Using the term "prehunt" glosses over the 2009 harvest of 2,026 bears which further reduces the estimate down to 9,074 bears excluding cubs.
The big unknown is how many cubs survive from one year to the next. Lots of factors involved in cub survival. Sows will abort if they are undernourished when they den up.

Sorry for straying off the subject of what's going on with the percentage of sows being killed in Utah. There's lots oif similarities...and I hope folks find this information to be interesting.

Virginia runs around a 40% + Female Harvest and the Population is Still Growing at nearly 9% ..

Virginia 2009-2010 Black Bear Harvest
In Virginia, 2304 bears were harvested during the 2009-2010 bear seasons representing the combined kill from archery, muzzleloader, and firearms. The 2009 harvest was 4.5% higher than the previous state record of 2204 bears harvested in 2008. In 2009, bears were harvested in 74 counties, including counties with no previous record of a legally harvested bear. Successful bear hunters came from 18 other states. Female bears represented 42% of the 2009 harvest which was similar to the 40% females in the 2008 harvest.

To meet Virginia Bear Management Plan objectives and address a bear population that has been steadily increasing at an average rate of about 9% per year, hunting opportunities for firearms, muzzleloaders, and archery were all liberalized for the 2009-10 seasons. As a result, the overall harvest increase for 2009 was not unexpected.

Archery hunters accounted for 1017 bears during 2009 and 44% of the total harvest. With two extra weeks of statewide opportunity for bowhunters, an increase in the 2009 archery harvest was expected compared to 2008 when 517 bears were taken by bowhunters. Poor mast conditions last fall also contributed to bowhunter success in 2009. Archery success typically increases during poor mast years and decreases when acorns are abundant. The top five archery counties were Rockingham (70), Page (70), Augusta (49), Shenandoah (44), and Bath (39). The harvest from the archery season was composed of 44% females compared to 38% in 2008.

Also targeting an increased bear harvest, significant expansion of muzzleloader opportunities during 2009 accounted for 356 bears (15% of the total harvest) compared to the 2008 muzzleloader harvest of 95 bears. A total of 40 counties reported at least one muzzleloader season kill. The top five muzzleloading counties were Rockingham (27), Botetourt (24), Highland (23), Page (20), and Augusta (20). The muzzleloader female harvest was 51% of the muzzleloader kills (46% in 2008).

Representing 40% of the total kill, the 2009 firearms season yielded 931 bears, a decrease from the 2008 firearms harvest of 1592 bears. Hound hunters accounted for 48% of the firearms kill in 2009, which was comparable to their 47% portion of the firearms harvest in 2008. Both firearms hunters who used hounds and those who did not experienced similar declines in harvest between 2008 and 2009. Hunting conditions and mast availability during the 2009 firearms season almost certainly contributed to the decline in firearms harvest. When acorn availability is poor (as it was in 2009), bears enter winter dens earlier and become less vulnerable to hunters. Compounding the bad mast conditions, significant snowstorms hit Virginia in mid-December which likely limited hunter activity during the last 2� weeks of the firearms season (including the holidays). The top five general firearms counties were Rockingham (79), Augusta (60), Rockbridge (60), Botetourt (59), and Nelson (58). General firearms hunters who did not use hounds harvested 42% females (also 42% in 2008), while hound hunters harvested 30% females (34% in 2008).

Despite the increasing trends, historical bear kills in all seasons are often characterized by wide annual fluctuations in harvest. Additional analyses of the 2009 bear harvest will help identify the relative influences of season changes, mast conditions, and inclement weather.

It will be enteresting to see the 2010-2011 Numbers !! We had a Very Long and Very Hard Winter last year and 60" + of Snow Hound Hunters and Non Hound Hunters Lost about 3-1/2 Week of season at least.

This Years we had a Record Accorn Crop but still had a Early Hard Freeze That should have put the Bear in Early..

http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/b ... ummary.asp

Majestic Treehound, Careful with the statistics provided. Bear population models are often wrong. Increased harvest and increased population growth with an increase in female bear being killed...just don't add up. It sounds like the same story Michigan once told. Mast crop and bear harvest may not be so intertwined. Good luck down there. I sure hope your numbers continue to add up. Slow growth populations like bear seldom increase in a given area. Increasing harvest numbers generally increase the killing of young and female bear. Hunters shoot what they can. Our DNR told the same story a few years ago and bear numbers crashed.

Yep I believe this years #s "When they come Out" Will be very Interesting .. Their were a ton of veriables involved going into this season, But the harvest season was Still cut short .. Time will tell ..

bearyooper, if you look at the numbers 4.5% increase in harvest, with 9% increase in population they seem to add up, since total harvest is usually 10-20% of population in most states, that would mean the increase in harvest would be between 1/2 and 1% of total population, which shouldn't adversly effect the population growth.

Bear hunting isthe reason i stopped coon hutning. when u coon hunt, to see the animal clearly you must shoot it out. also to tune up your hounds you must kill the coon. when u bear hunt, you can simply bring it down and let the dogs chew on him a little, then leave him in the tree for another day. in the past 6 years ive been to approximately 153 bear trees during kill season. we have taken around 10. all boars. weighing over 300 pounds. ive killed 2 myself. i care nothing about killing the bear. my dogs know what a bear is. and if they dnt, i bring it down and let em chew on it a little. u dnt have to kill it.

plotts13 : Just how exactly do you bring the bears down let the hounds chew on it for a while. Then leave it back in the tree .

Also glad to hear that all the bears in your area are over 300 lbs

When Michigan was the track of increasing harvest and population. Same logic prevailed. Then all of a sudden they said they overestimated the population by double.