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March 6, 2009
TROPHY Hunting of Black Bears
May Be Allowed in San Luis Obispo County
Fifty Bears
Could Be Killed in the County Each Year;
Lack of Transparency & Scientific Data Leaves
Many Questions Unanswered
Last month, the California
Department of Fish & Game announced a formal proposal to allow
trophy hunting of black bears in San Luis Obispo County,
beginning as soon as this summer. According to the Department,
most bear hunting in the county would occur on public land in
the Los Padres National Forest. The Department estimates that as
many as fifty of the county's black bears would be hunted and
killed each year.
photo by Norbert Rosing,
National Geographic
The proposal was announced on
February 17, 2009 as part of the Department's periodic revision
of the state's Mammal Hunting Regulations. The agency
simultaneously announced plans to lift limits on the number of
bears that can be hunted throughout the state each year. Both
proposals will be discussed at the California Fish & Game
Commission's hearing on April 9 in Lodi, California - more than
two hundred miles away from San Luis Obispo. The commission will
accept public comments on the proposal through April 20 and is
scheduled to adopt the proposal in a teleconference on April 21.
Accompanying its announcement,
the Department released a brief ten-page analysis concluding
that sport hunting of bears will not have a significant effect
on the County's bear populations. However, officials admit that
it is unknown how many bears actually occur in San Luis Obispo
County, making it difficult to determine exactly what impact the
proposal will have.
"Hunting of bears and other
large mammals should be based on strong scientific data, not
guesswork," said Jeff Kuyper, Executive Director of Los
Padres ForestWatch. "We need to allow bears the freedom to roam
in our local backcountry, and make serious decisions like these
these only
after gathering all of the scientific data needed to make an
informed decision."
Biologists estimate that at
least 25,000 black bears roam throughout California. Most of
those bears are found in the Sierra Nevada and in northern
California. Only 10% of the state's black bear population is
found in southern California.
The number of black bears in
San Luis Obispo County is unknown. Black bears have been
expanding their range into areas once occupied by grizzly bears.
With grizzlies hunted to extinction in California during the
early 1900s, black bears have gradually moved into their former
habitat along the central coast, working their way northward
into San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties.
The proposal to expand hunting
into San Luis Obispo County first emerged in 2007 with a request
from the sport hunting community. In response, the Department
has conducted a two year study involving hanging cans of fish
from tree limbs, with monitors visiting the bait sites and
recording signs of teeth marks or bear prints. While these
studies indicate where bears are located, more detailed
studies (such as radio telemetry, DNA analysis of hair or scat,
or mark-recapture) were not performed, leaving biologists with
no data to estimate the actual number of bears in the
county. This bear population data is critical - without it, the
Department has no scientific basis to determine if, and at what
levels, hunting should occur.
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