Hunting Black Bear in the Spring

Every spring someone in the news media brings up spring bear hunting. The anti-hunters try to draw on your emotions by lamenting about the poor little baby bears. They don't give you much for facts so you can make an intelligent decision over bear hunting in the spring. I think these folk got their ideas about bears from Winnie the Pooh. Funny though, how these are often the same people who go into a panic if a bear is within 300 yards of them.

The fact is that sows don't go far from their cubs in the spring. The babies are young and momma is keeping a very close eye on them. She'll enter your site, check it out, and they are close on her heels. The hunter doesn't have to wait long to determine if she's got cubs. We're not about to harvest a nursing sow. We want to keep our hunting areas healthy and vibrant. You never know, one of those babies might be a future monster bear.