After a lot of talk last fall surrounding the possibility of hunting Louisiana black bears, state regulators made it official last week. Announcing the state’s first bear hunting season in nearly 40 years, a handful of Louisiana hunters will get a shot at a black bear this December.
Following a bit of pushback from bear activists, the state’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries stood their ground, disagreeing with the naysayers. Stating that there was not a healthy enough population to sustain a hunt was simply not true according to the department’s large carnivore manager John Hanks. Pegging the population at around 1,200 bears, Hanks told both commissioners and those opposing the hunt that these numbers were sufficient to have a “conservative harvest in limited areas,” in a statement in the Shreveport Times.
State officials have made it clear that most of these bears are located in roughly the same area. A small region in the northeastern corner of Louisiana is ground zero for black bears where many local residents are supporting the hunt as a way to help manage the growing population of bears.
Since bouncing back from all time lows in the early nineties when they were first added to the Endangered Species List. Working as the ESL was intended, the official state mammal of Louisiana was deemed ‘recovered’ by 2016 with all protections removed. With a keen eye on their beloved bears, state wildlife biologists have watched the population flourish and are confident that the extremely limited 2024 season will make very little impact on the state’s bear populations.
As per last week’s official announcement, the upcoming season is set to run between December 7th through the 22nd and will be confined to the specific bear management units in the northeastern corner of the state. In total, 10 black bear tags are set to be allocated for this season’s hunt which will require all successful applicants to attend a bear hunter training course.
The upcoming draw is set to take place this coming fall.
