West Virginia bear hunters recorded the greatest success rate in state history in 2008.
"We had a total kill of 2,064 on a statewide basis,” said West Virginia DNR Bear Project Leader Chris Ryan. "We’re extremely happy with that."
The success of hunters during the various seasons of the fall comes as no surprise. Bear numbers across West Virginia have increased exponentially in recent years. Those numbers have prompted the state’s Natural Resources Commission to loosen the restrictions on bear hunting. It’s paid off in a big way.
"We’ve always been pretty happy with the early seasons we’ve had down here in Kanawha, Boone, Fayette, and Raleigh (counties). The female survival in most of those spots has reflected the success of those early seasons,” said Ryan.
Fueled by the success of the early seasons in the southern coalfields, the DNR in 2008 extended the early seasons to the traditional bear hunting haunts of the mountains.
"It had been 20-years since we’d had an early season in those traditional mountain counties," explained Ryan. "The female survival was just so high, it kept allowing that population to grow. We were seeing an average growth rate of about seven-percent across those mountain counties. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to know if you have a thousand bears in a county and a seven percent growth rate, it’s going to grow exponentially."
Slowing that growth rate was the intent of the early season and it worked. Game managers are always careful not to go to far in that direction. Ryan is satisfied that the high kill in no way hurt the state’s bear numbers.
West Virginia’s bear population began that rapid growth rate in the late 80’s and early 90’s once DNR researchers were able to determine denning chronology. Research indicated that most pregnant females were going to den much earlier than males and unbred females. The state simply shifted the season a month later to December and saved countless females from the hunters, insuring rapid expansion.
The climate, terrain, and food abundance of southern West Virginia has only fueled that growth. Research shows bears in the southern coalfields don’t necessarily have more offspring, but they do begin breeding at a far younger age. Winter survival rates in the south are also far healthier with short winter hibernation and enormous food supplies.