Why Spring? Why Bears?
Bear hunting spans from first people to step foot on the North American continent to modern-day hunters that hunt black bears in the spring season. That practice, tradition, and pastime is now being challenged with a recent question posed by a Fish and Game Commissioner: “Why do we still hunt bears in the Spring?”
It’s a good question, one that we should answer: Why is there a spring bear season in states that can sustain it, at all? Which speaks to a larger question as to whether hunting has detrimentally affected Black bears in North America? Notably, among the world’s large carnivores, American black bears (Ursus americanus) are the foremost conservation success story (Garshelis 2020).
We would argue that it’s because of spring bear hunting, not the banning of which, that has led to this conservation success story.
Spring bear hunting seasons are implemented by wildlife biologists and state agencies for population management, research, and conservation. Black bears were named to a big game species halfway through the 20th century by US states, not because the species was common enough to hunt, but rather to help build populations that could be sustainably hunted for recreation and meat (Garshelis 2020).
As of 2019,
- Two-thirds of states with resident black bears have increasing populations
- Eight U.S. states where black bears were once extirpated have viable populations, and
- All continental U.S. states have reported recent sightings of black bears
(Garshelis 2020, Garshelis 2016)
The Spring Bear Hunt Provides the Best Ecology for Bears and Other Wildlife
Black bears, like many large mammals, need to be managed to ensure appropriate ecosystem balances, a mitigation of human wildlife conflicts, specifically in today’s world of anthropogenic influences and pressures on bears and their habitat. Too many bears is not good for bears, nor the environment – this is sometimes referred to as carrying capacity.
The carrying capacity is the maximum number of individuals of a particular species that an environment can sustainably support over time without degrading the habitat. Reflect on this for a moment – it means that a management objective for bears, or any animal, is built to provide the best ecology for those very animals, as well as others and habitat.
So, if bears are being hunted in the spring, what bears are actually being hunted?
The answer is overwhelmingly males (boars), as they emerge earlier than females (sows) and cubs (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife 2022). The spring season in particular allows hunting efforts to focus on males, which has a lower impact on future population growth. Research by Miller et al. 2003 on brown bears in Alaska found that the selective harvest of males during spring seasons reduces the likelihood of orphaning cubs, aligns with population control strategies, and in fact – cub survivorship was higher amongst heavily hunted bear populations (Miller 2003). This finding begs the question why? Why was cub survivorship actually higher with spring bear hunting? The key element in cub survivorship was carrying capacity – as the authors share variations in cub survivorship and litter size were best explained by proximity to carrying capacity. This is backed up empirically by data from the state of Washington – in 2021, the last year of the spring bear hunt, males made up 66.04% of the spring harvest, aligned with historical data wherein males have made up the majority of the spring harvest.
In a decade-long study conducted in Canada contrasting comparable hunted versus non-hunted regions – yearling survival was higher in the hunted area. Even more remarkable is that in the non-hunted area, adult females were approximately twice as likely to die and nearly 10 times as likely to be cannibalized, while encumbered with cubs (Obbard 2008).
The only thing controversial about the spring bear hunt is removing it
We hope that next time that the “why” of the spring bear hunt, and the science supporting it will be clear. The committee chair of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Barbara Baker once noted in a commission meeting: “opponents of the spring hunt are essentially asking ‘the why’ of the hunt. I don’t believe science is really a factor …”. It’s a sad day when science is relegated in wildlife management from the chair of the commission in charge of its management.
Sound science should be the dominant, unequivocal factor determining to keep or remove a spring bear hunt. Science is unequivocal in spring black bear hunting – it has not detrimental effect on the population In fact, it’s the exact opposite – the black bear is the shining city on the hill of wildlife conservation, with its population increase across the United States placing the American Black bear as the most common wild large carnivore in the world (Garshelis 2020, Ripple 2014) .
When someone asks why do we hunt bears in the Spring? Now you can tell them why.
References
- Garshelis DL, Noyce KV, St-Louis V (2020) Population reduction by hunting helps control human–wildlife conflicts for a species that is a conservation success story. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0237274. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237274
- Garshelis DL, Scheick BK, Doan-Crider DL, Beecham JJ, Obbard ME. Ursus americanus (2016). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species; e.T41687A114251609. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T41687A45034604.en
- Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. (2022). Commission Question and Answers. Retrieved from https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/Commission%20Question%20Answers_Feb23_2022.pdf
- Miller, S., Sellers, R.A., & Keay, J.A. (2003). Effects of hunting on brown bear cub survival and litter size in Alaska. Ursus, 14(2):130-152. Link
- Obbard, M.E. and Howe, E.J. (2008), Demography of Black Bears in Hunted and Unhunted Areas of the Boreal Forest of Ontario. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 72: 869-880. https://doi.org/10.2193/2006-158
- Ripple W.J., Estes J.A., Beschta R.L., Wilmers C.C., Ritchie E.G., Hebblewhite M., et al. (2014) Status and ecological effects of the world’s largest carnivores. Science, 343: https://doi.org/10.1126/science 1241484 PMID:24408439
