This 421-pound bear was shot in Frederick County, Maryland last fall. Bear hunting is legal in four Maryland counties which have a combined bear population of about 2,500. In 2018, the bear season was 5 days and 135 bears were killed. 5,491 hunters applied for a permit (paying $15 each to enter the lottery), and 800 permits were awarded.
Bear populations are going up all over. The black bear population of the United States is estimated to have grown by up to 35 percent between 1988 and 1995, from a population range of 253,000 to 375,000 bears in 1988, to a population of about 465,000 by the mid-1990s. Today the total black bear population of the US is estimated at 600,000, with 100,000 of this total in Alaska.
Maryland bears are natural re-colonizers coming in from Virginia and Pennsylvania, and their presence and expanding range across the US is evidence of good conservation work and excellent science-based wildlife management married to the natural fecundity of Mother Nature
No comments:
Post a Comment