GAME COMMISSION Reports: Plenty of bears in Pa.

Pennsylvania's black bear season looks promising.
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
HARRISBURG -- Whenever a near-record black bear harvest occurs, as in 2003, hunters typically expect the next year's harvest to drop off. But Pennsylvania Game Commission field officers and biologists don't believe the state will head in that direction when the statewide three-day bear season opens Nov. 22, so long as inclement weather doesn't keep hunters out of the woods.
"The last few years have been phenomenal for black bear hunting," said Vern Ross, executive director of the commission. "Our bear population has been growing for some time, and field officers have been tasked to perform more and more bear nuisance work. Residents are seeing bears everywhere. And each year, bears move into more areas where they haven't been seen in a long, long time.
"The first time hunters took 3,000-plus bears in the state, they followed the season with another 3,000-plus harvest. Of course, there's no way of guaranteeing they'll do the same in 2004, but there surely is no shortage of bears in the Commonwealth."
Record harvests
Pennsylvania recorded its first 3,000-plus harvest in 2000, when hunters took 3,075 bears. In 2001, the harvest dropped slightly to 3,063. Then in 2002, it slipped to 2,686. Last year, the harvest totaled 3,000 bears.
Pennsylvania's four largest black bear harvests have occurred over the past four years, which seems odd for a somewhat reclusive big woods species at a time when development -- particularly in the Poconos, a historic black bear stronghold -- continually claims more of Penn's Woods. But not according to Mark Ternent, black bear biologist for the commission.
"Our record black bear harvests have been occurring because the bear population has been increasing, not because hunters are starting to take progressively more bears out of the population each year," Ternent said. "Hunters have consistently taken about 20 percent of the state's bear population annually since 1980. The last four years -- although record harvest years -- were no exception. Population growth has been most noticeable in places where bears have been expanding their range, like our southern and western counties.
"Right now, the game commission believes the state's bear population is nearly 15,000 bears, which is close to where it was last year. These estimates are based on an intensive monitoring program that involves the capture and ear-tagging of about 600 bears annually. Observations of many Wildlife Conservation Officers have likewise followed the same trend -- that bears are as abundant as ever, despite record harvests in the past four years."
Rising numbers
Game commission field personnel collectively believe bear numbers are stable or rising in most areas where bears have been established for some time. They rate bear-hunting prospects as good to excellent and also note that large bears are being seen with regularity.
On the heels of two very successful years of expanded bear hunting in the Poconos, the game commission for the first time is expanding bear hunting in the first week of the rifle deer season -- Nov. 29-Dec. 4 -- to include WMU 4C, which comprises portions of Berks, Carbon, Columbia, Dauphin, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties. WMU 3D, which includes all of Monroe and Pike counties and parts of Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Lehigh, Northampton and Wayne counties -- also will be included in the extended season, as well as portions of WMUs 3C, 3B and 4E, and a small area in Lycoming County north of Williamsport.
Ternent is expecting a bear harvest of 2,500 to 3,000, with the chance for slightly more if the weather is ideal for hunting.