Wisconsin bears are hardly in a "fair chase" scenario this Fall as the State allows Bear hunting with hounds and baiting in certain sections .....The Dept of Ntl Resources analyzes the teeth and ribs of the 5,235 bears that will be killed by hunters this season(this years hunt quota) as part of their analysis on population health and density which at this time is estimated to be 13,000 bruins, comparable to densities in Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...............Fantastic that the Bears have been brought back from oblivion since the end of World War 2..............This writer questions the 40%(5200 of the 13,000 population) quota as being high for a top trophic predator like the Black Bear and also has problems catering to hunters who only know how to kill a baited bear that comes to them or a bear that has been run ragged and treed by hounds...........That is not in the spirit of the North American hunting tradition!

Wisconsin hunters could see big bear harvest this year

 Wisconsin's black bear hunting season opened Wednesday, and this year hunters using hounds will have exclusive hunting for the first week of the season in zones where hunting bear with dogs is allowed (A,B and D).

In Zone C, roughly the area south of U.S. 8 in western Wisconsin and Highway 64 in eastern Wisconsin, hunting bear with dogs is not permitted, so bait hunters could start Wednesday.

The season lasts through Oct. 11.

State wildlife biologists say bears are thriving and continuing to explore new territories.The state Department of Natural Resources  issued 9,005 bear hunting permits this year. The harvest quota is 5,235 bears, the same as last year.

Successful hunters are required to submit a bear tooth and 2-inch piece of bear rib at the time of registration, as part of a two-year bear population study. The study's results will be combined with those compiled during a similar study conducted from 2006 to 2008 that provided the scientific basis required to increase bear harvest permits.

"Excitement is high among the bear hunters I have spoken with," said Linda Olver, DNR bear biologist. "Many have submitted trail camera photos of bear visiting their baiting sites, and there are some pretty impressive bear out there. Whether or not we have a season like 2010, when a new bear harvest record was set and at least three 700-pound bears were registered, remains to be seen, but the potential is there."

Last year there were 2,430 permits available in Zone C, and hunters killed 809 bears for a 33 percent success rate. The kill figure was the highest in Zone C since the season framework was started in 1986, said Kris Belling, district wildlife supervisor for the DNR West Central District.


Range of Bears in Wisconsin

Because of the increasing human activity in the north, bears are being pushed into some of the wilder parts of central Wisconsin, including Buffalo, Eau Claire, and Jackson counties. Occasionally, a sighting will occur as far south as Portage, Spring Green or other areas near major rivers that act as travel lanes for wandering bears.



History of Bears in Wisconsin


At the time of Wisconsin statehood, black bears were found in every county in the state, though less frequently in the southern prairies and oak savannahs. Early Native Americans honored the bear as a supernatural being and treated the bear hunt with great ceremony and respect. They prized bear hides for robes and the meat and oil for cooking, fuel and medicines. The Native Nations in Wisconsin today still cherish and honor the black bear. The earliest white settlers, too, placed great value on bear meat and especially sought the bearskins with which they made clothing and bedding.


As more white settlers flooded into the state, however, conflict increased among bears and people. Settlers in the outskirts of cities or on farmsteads began considering bears as "noxious pests." In an attempt to deliberately reduce the bear population in areas with greater density of human settlement, people put a price tag on the bear's head, a bounty, to encourage people to kill as many bears as possible. The fact that fur traders of that era were paying high prices for bearskins also increased the hunting pressure on bears. This large-scale killing resulted in a substantial reduction in the state's black bear population.

 Black bears were exterminated from Wisconsin's southeastern counties by 1860. They maintained a dwindling population in the central and western counties of southern Wisconsin until the 1890s. In the wilder, hill country portions of Sauk and Richland counties bears maintained a population until well after 1900. Black bears vanished from areas near the Green Bay fur posts around 1899 and disappeared from Door County in 1900.


The large-scale logging operations of the late 1800s plus additional encroachment of people into the bear's native habitat, created even more pressure on bears. During this time period, bear numbers continued to decline until they reached their lowest point in our state's history in 1915.

The old Wisconsin Conservation Department (the forerunner of today's DNR) felt that the downward trend in the black bear population was not an acceptable fate for this magnificent animal. They wanted to help the bear population flourish again. So in 1942, the Department released black bear cubs back into the wilds of Door County. Between 1937 and 1942 the Department released black bears in Adams, Jackson and Wood counties.


How's it Goin', Today?


Wisconsin has a thriving black bear population. The primary range for black bears is in the northern 1/3 of the state, but bears are being sited more frequently in the central and southern counties of Wisconsin as farm fields have been abandoned and become more brushy. Although Wisconsin's black bears are doing extremely well now, this was not always the case. Prior to 1985, unlimited and increasing harvests were causing the bear population to rapidly decline. Following a closed bear season in 1985, and with the cooperation of major hunter organizations and the passage of authorizing legislation, a new system of bear hunting and harvest control was initiated with the 1986 season. Since then, the bear population in Wisconsin has almost tripled!

Population estimate

The two-year, DNR-funded study was conducted by University of Wisconsin-Madison Wildlife Ecology graduate student Dave MacFarland under the guidance of Dr. Timothy Van Deelen.



“The preliminary results are comparable to bear densities in Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,” said Van Deelen. “Dave and I spent a good deal of time rechecking our calculations and we’re eager to see if the results hold when the second year of data are incorporated.”

In the bear study, some 3,500 baits marked with tetracycline were set out across the state’s bear range in 2006. Tetracycline, when ingested, is harmless to bears but leaves a telltale line in a bear’s bones. Successful bear hunters in 2006 and 2007 were asked to provide a section of a rib bone from bears they harvested for analysis. From those samples, the biologists were able to use a formula to calculate the estimated bear population.

Using tetracycline is a variation on a wildlife population estimating technique known as mark and recapture. Other examples of mark and recapture are banding of waterfowl and songbirds and radio collars or radio implants on other species. When hunters report harvesting a banded game bird or biologists recapture a banded songbird, that information is used in a model to estimate total populations.

Currently, biologists track black bear populations by placing a series of baits on routes in each county throughout the black bear’s range and record which are consumed by bears over a week long observation period. Biologists use these observations to help build a population model that also takes into account hunter harvest, hunter success rates, bear population data and historical harvest rates to generate a population estimate. This model estimates the current black bear population in Wisconsin to be at about 13,000.