A couple of weeks ago some folks were lucky enough
to see a black bear in the town of Pendleton.
The news and social media were all abuzz over the sighting, just as they
were in the summer of 2009 when a lone black bear stayed in the county for
quite some time. Niagara County residents were then, as they are now, hoping to
catch a glimpse of an awesome beast that is an infrequent visitor to our
region.
Even in what is considered their regular home territory
elsewhere in New York, black bears remain a rare sight. I consider myself a
fairly decent naturalist and I spend a lot of time in the woods observing
and/or hunting wildlife, yet I have had just a dozen encounters with bears in
the wilds of Allegany County over the past 20 years.
That isn’t a number that jumps out at you and
screams “overabundance.” Officials with the Department of Environmental
Conservation think otherwise.
Last month the DEC issued their black bear
management plan for the period of 2014 to 2024 (you can download the 41-page
document at tinyurl.com/NYbearplan). In
it, they cite a healthy and expanding population of black bears in the Empire State
(an estimated 8,000 bears) as a reason for concern, as it could lead to an
increase in human-bear conflicts.
In hopes of
maintaining the status quo in terms of population and interactions, the DEC in
that same report outlined their plans to bolster the harvest of these
magnificent animals.
As it
stands now, hunting of black bears is limited to the Southern Tier, the
Catskills, the Adirondacks and the Finger Lakes (the last territory an outcome
of a 2011 expansion). If the DEC has its way, hunting will be expanded to all
of upstate New York, including Niagara County
--- and you know how rare bears are here!
The point
of the DEC’s plan is to actually prevent the itinerant black bears from
establishing permanent populations on the Lake Plains and in the Rochester
area. They want the bruins totally eliminated even though there are vast wild
areas where they could maintain healthy and safe populations (the Iroquois
Wildlife Refuge immediately comes to mind). That extermination plan is
something akin to the 1800s bounties placed on bisons and wolves (a “kill ‘em
all” mindset), something we’ve grown to regret decades later.
The
expansion of the hunt wouldn’t end there. The length of the hunt would be
expanded as well. A supplemental firearm season would be advanced in the
Catskills and Western Hudson Valley, bringing an extra hunt to the first
Saturday after Labor Day.
Although
not a part of the current plan, the DEC also intimated that they are
entertaining the thought of the harvest of cubs and allowing hunting over bait
piles and with hunting dogs – things that could be considered poor
sportsmanship. It’s wrong to harvest a young animal (you wouldn’t do that to a
fawn), it’s not fair to alter an animal’s behavior and feeding over time only
to guarantee its harvest (it’s like hunting a farm animal) and although it
makes sense to hunt upland game birds and rabbits with dogs (as they hold close
to cover), you shouldn’t need them to hunt megafauna like bears.
If you
count yourself as a conservationist, animal lover, or just someone with a
passing interest in our local wildlife, take the time to write the DEC and let
them know their management plan is flawed and they should not allow the
reckless slaughter of black bears here in Niagara County and other locales
where they haven’t established populations. Keep the hunting regulations as
they are now, which do well in maintaining a hunting and conservation balance,
and continue to allow the bears to flourish and become a regular part of our
outdoor experiences, all across New York.
The public
comment period closes on July 7th. Citizens who wish to make formal public
comments may do so by sending an email to wildliferegs@gw.dec.state.ny.us or by
writing to: Mr. Bryan L. Swift, New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation, Bureau of Wildlife, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4754.
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