At a gathering by the river, a friend and I served wild game tacos. Every 40 guests we got two: one elk, the other black bear.
I have yet to hear from a single person who prefers elk.
America’s black bear population is healthy and growing. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the species to be “least concerned.” The conservation status is the same as raccoons and crows.
But black bear hunting is a perennial tinderbox in wildlife politics. From coast to coast, black bear hunters are often under attack from politicians, animal rights extremists and wildlife management officials who don’t like hunting. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy campaigned partly in opposition to the state’s black bear hunt and, if elected, went against his own wildlife management agency’s recommendations to end the practice. (They revoke the policy after a dramatic increase in bear-human conflict.)
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife conducts a strictly regulated annual bear hunting with a cap on total killing as well as a ban on throwing bear meat, killing cubs and killing sows accompanied by cubs. But politicians and activists have repeatedly tried to strip the agency of its power to authorize hunting without evidence that it harms bear populations. In fact, California’s black bears have thrived in the midst of hunting, and all evidence suggests the state could significantly expand bear hunting without negative impacts.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife issued a draft black bear management plan in April estimated California’s black bear population at about 65,000, up from about 20,000 in 1998, when the end of that plan adopted. The dramatic growth in numbers could justify the expansion of hunting.
The increase is a function of not only more bears but also better counting. The 1998 population estimate was derived from data on hunted black bears. Today, that data set is combined with information from nearly 3,000 different cameras spread throughout California’s bear habitat.
Animal rights activists often misrepresent or confuse these population data. Number of bears killed by hunters dropped drastically, for example, after the California Legislature banned the use of dogs to hunt animals in 2012. A decade later, in Humane Society of the United States petition The Department of Fish and Wildlife to issue a moratorium on black bear hunting, said the drop in the success rate of hunters’ as evidence of the alleged decline in the bear population, which is clearly not.
However, hunters, not the Humane Society, help foot the bill for black bear research and management. From 2012 to 2022, black bear hunters paid more than $27 million in license fees that funded the salaries of state biologists and game wardens. Excise taxes on guns, ammunition and equipment related to hunting generate an additional $ 10 million to $ 30 million per year for the state, much of which goes to research and management of black bears in the last decade.
Any given California bear is unlikely to be killed by a hunter. Up to half of black bears die in their first year of life, most often from cannibalism, starvation or abandonment. Among adult bears, the main cause of death is related to humans, but due to cars and other anthropogenic hazards, this is true even in areas where bear hunting is not allowed.
In areas of California that are open to hunting, the annual harvest rate — the portion of bears killed by hunters — is only about 3% of the population. But the black bear population can handle an annual harvest rate of at least 16% without declining. California could allow each hunter to take two bears instead of the current limit of one, double the cap on the total kill to 3,400 and reverse the ban on hunting with dogs and still see no decrease in the number of bears overall. The new management plan states that “protection from hunting may not lead to greater survival and, consequently, population growth.”
California’s first documented black bear attack on a human occurred in November. Although this incident is not without cause and there is no reason to think that hunting more bears can prevent it, it is a reminder that all species exist in the context of, and often at the expense of, other species.
One study found that newborn mule deer on the western side of the Sierra Nevada peaks were more than six times more likely to be killed by black bears than by other causes. And every time a mountain lion kills a prey animal in the Mendocino National Forest, it has a more than 70% chance of losing to a black bear. This forces mountain lions to kill more deer and may have something to do with the local population decline of the species.
That is the eternal interplay between predator and prey, which has a human dimension for thousands of years in California. Fortunately, rigorous science and proper regulation can help us manage the relationship between hunting and hunting in a way that is sustainable and even beneficial to wildlife. By responsibly consuming excess black bears, hunters can fund means to increase collective understanding of wildlife, fund habitat protection and other projects to support wildlife, and help keepers protect the animals.
It is understandable that most Californians would not choose to become hunters. What’s less clear is why more non-supporters do.
Steven Rinella is a writer and conservationist who hosts “The MeatEater Podcast.”
