MN Bear Hunting Trend

[BearGuide]

Here is an article from Outdoornews about MN bear hunting trends...

"Bear hunting: Application increase start of a trend?"
Outdoornews.com
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 5:07 PM EDT
By Joe AlbertAssociate Editor

St. Paul - While the number of hunters applying for permits to hunt bears in the state, by historical levels, remains low, applications in 2007 snapped a two-year slide.

 
This year, 16,334 hunters applied for 13,200 bear permits. In 2006, 15,725 hunters applied, while 16,153 did so in 2005.

The number of permits that are available for hunters is at the lowest level it's been since 1997, but officials say that's a reflection of the fact there are fewer bear hunters, rather than any problem with the state's bear population, which they say is holding steady at between 20,000 and 30,000 animals. The average yearly bear kill is about 3,500 animals.

Hunting is necessary to help manage the state's population of bears, and, at this point, there are enough hunters to do that, said Lou Cornicelli, DNR big game program coordinator.

'As long as we have odds attached to most of the bear zones, then it's probably a good thing and we are going OK,' he said. 'It's these areas that are chronically under-subscribed' that are the problems.

For the 2007 season - the season is Sept. 1 to Oct. 14; hunters may begin baiting Aug. 17 - there are surplus licenses remaining in three of the state's 11 permit areas in the quota zone. There are 63 licenses (of the 150 available) remaining in Area 22, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area; 158 licenses (of the 900 available) in Area 24 in the central Arrowhead; and 266 licenses (of the 1,200 available) in Area 45, the central part of the state.

Though applications are at their highest level since 2004, when 16,466 hunters applied, officials aren't ready to say it's the start of a new trend.

'The theory is that it was declining because people don't necessarily want to kill more than one or two bears in their lifetime,' Cornicelli said.

While officials say a pool of hunters is necessary to manage bear populations - and that pool currently exists, they point out - there hasn't been a concerted attempt to increase the numbers, according to Ryan Bronson, supervisor of the DNR's hunter recruitment and retention program.

'Bear hunting from a recruitment standpoint is a low priority,' he said. 'If you've never hunted anything before, chances are you're not going to start on bears.'

In the past, the DNR would send postcards to bear hunters to remind them of the application deadline. That was eliminated a few years ago as a cost-saving measure, Bronson said.

'As soon as we stopped doing that, we started seeing declines in application rates,' he said. Since then, 'we've seen significant declines.'

There was an average of about 26,000 applications between 2000 and 2002. In the five years since then, the average has been just more than 16,000 applications.