First reported by Pennlive.com. As the final day of the 2016 rifle hunting season for bear – Pennsylvania’s primary hunting season for the species – came to a close at nightfall Wednesday, Nov. 23, Pennsylvania Game Commission bear check stations had processed 2,550 black bears.
Some additional bears will be checked in by hunters who could not get to a check station by 9 p.m. Wednesday, but not enough to elevate the bear harvest to anything close to the record.
Hunters turned in Pennsylvania’s all-time largest bear harvest in 2011, when 4,350 bears were harvested. The 2015 harvest was the third-largest on record, with hunters taking 3,748 bears. Pennsylvania’s eight largest bear harvests all have occurred within the past decade.
While many pre-season conditions seemed in place for a record harvest this year, including a record number of hunters with bear licenses, a record bear population and plenty of food available to keep bears out of hibernation, the critical factor of weather did not favor hunters.
Snow that arrived late Saturday afternoon in northern and western Pennsylvania came too late to have an over-the-top impact on the bear harvest, putting down a snow cover after large numbers of hunters had left the woods.
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