Black Bear Management Options

V. BLACK BEAR MANAGEMENT OPTIONS

There are a variety of management options used by wildlife management agencies to regulate black bear population numbers.  Different management options are used to achieve different population goals.  Multiple options may be implemented simultaneously to achieve specific management results across a broad or specific area.  These options may be used to alter biological carrying capacity or to achieve cultural carrying capacity by either stabilizing the population or allowing the population to increase or decrease.

Passive Management

Passive management, or allowing nature to take its course, is a management option that enables the black bear population to increase at the maximum growth rate allowed by biological factors.  This management option may be favorable in areas where bear densities are low and a higher black bear population and expanded range are desirable.  Over time, passive management would allow a population to reach biological carrying capacity.  It is likely, however, that the population would first reach cultural carrying capacity due to the increasing number of human-bear encounters associated with growing black bear populations.

Habitat Management

Habitat can be manipulated through various habitat management techniques, including the application of silvicultural treatments and prescribed burnings to improve the quality of habitat available for bears.  Habitat can be manipulated to increase food availability, denning, and escape cover to meet the year-round habitat requirements of bears (Weaver 2000).  The quantity and quality of suitable travel corridors can also be improved via habitat manipulation, thereby increasing the biological carrying capacity of the habitat available to bears.

Habitat manipulations require a lengthy period of time for the habitat to respond favorably after manipulation.  For example, an area of forest that is clearcut will produce abundant seasonal soft mast food items and thick escape cover for bears, but typically takes 2-3 years in western Maryland to start providing those resources (Ernie Metz-MD DNR Forest Service, pers. comm.). Therefore, habitat management is not a practical population management tool used to achieve a population level consistent with CCC.  Instead, habitat management can be used to improve the quality of available habitat across the landscape in consideration of landscape issues such as habitat fragmentation and corridor availability.

Regulated Hunting

Regulated hunting is a widely used population management tool for black bears. Regulated hunting can be used to achieve a black bear population level consistent with CCC.  All of Maryland’s surrounding states with black bear populations (Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia) use hunting as their primary means of black bear population management.

Hunting seasons can be structured to meet conservative or liberal harvest objectives, allowing black bear populations to increase, decrease, or be stabilized.  This can be accomplished by adjusting hunting season parameters, such as season length and timing, bag limits, legal method of take, and zoning of hunting areas.

Additionally, regulated hunting can be used to gain valuable information about the black bear population.  Data collected from harvested animals can be used to monitor the population.  Should DNR implement a bear hunting season, these biological data could be used to aid WHS in determining sex and age composition, population trends, and other important population modeling information.

Immunocontraception/Sterilization

Immunocontraception and sterilization, or fertility control, has been suggested as a management tool to reduce black bear numbers.  Currently, however, the technology and methods are not available to make fertility control a viable option for population control in free ranging black bear populations (Fraker 2003). There is no current FDA approved fertility control agent available for use on bears, and it is unlikely any will be developed in the near future (Fraker 2003).  Gaining approval for the use of fertility control agents is a costly and time-intensive process, whereby the drug sponsor must provide substantial evidence of a drug’s effectiveness through controlled studies.  The safety of the target species must be proven before FDA approval will be given, and there is likely not a large enough market to make development of a drug approved for use on bears fiscally worthwhile to the drug sponsors.  While not a practical population management tool at the current time, fertility control research is ongoing, and may have more practical population management implications in the future.

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