Bears - Sounds Wild
Prince of Wales Black Bear Management

Transcript

Prince of Wales Black Bear Management

Prince of Wales Island in southern Southeast Alaska is popular with black bear hunters. In recent years it's become a little too popular. Historically, hunters harvested about 225 black bears a year from Prince of Wales, but in the late 1990s harvest began increasing, peaking at nearly 500 animals in 2005.

Since then the harvest has steadily decreased. Concerned about overharvest, managers studied harvest records and noted a striking difference between the spring and fall hunting seasons. In the spring, almost 90 percent of the black bears harvested are males. In the fall, hunters take 50 percent males, and 50 percent females. There are several reasons. In the spring, the most popular hunting methods are 1) using a skiff to search tide flats, and 2) using bait to attract a bear. Both methods give hunters an opportunity to watch a number of animals, to see cubs and avoid taking a mother bear, and plenty of the time to size up a bear before shooting.

In the fall, hunters converge on streams where bears are eating salmon. Biologists suspect many big male bears move off the streams in September, and consequently more females and young bears move in. Hunting along salmon streams can be a close-quarters affair and hunters may not have time to judge a bear or watch it long enough to see cubs. The potential for wounding loss is high, because bears that are shot can quickly escape into the thick forest, making it difficult for the hunters to recover them. Fall hunting has the potential to seriously impact the female segment of the black bear population.

To curb the apparent population decline, managers have severely limited hunters' access to salmon streams in the fall. It seems to be working. Last fall, the overall harvest was down about 40 percent - and fewer female bears were taken.