BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) -- Black bear hunting is back for the first time in Louisiana since the late 1980s. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced how they’re divvying up the first round of tags and what could happen in the future.
In the middle of the 20th century, the Louisiana black bear population had dwindled to less than 120 bears. In 1992 they were given protection through the Endangered Species Act. In 2016, they were removed from the list due to extensive efforts to bring the population back – which is estimated now at around 1,500.
“We now have so many that they are getting in the way of deer hunting and with sometimes four to five black bears showing up at one hunt on a game cam,” Gov. Jeff Landry said.
For the first time since the hunting of black bears was banned in the state in 1988, a small group of people will be allowed to hunt the bears. Only 10 tags were released this year. One went to a veteran through the Healing Road Foundation, seven went to private landowners who aided in the growth of the bear habitat, one went to wildlife management, and one was released to the public through a lottery. According to wildlife officials, over 900 applications were submitted for the one public tag.
The current hunting season for the black bear in the state started on Saturday, Dec. 7, and will run through Sunday, Dec. 22. A lottery took place earlier this year with a total of 10 permits issued for the hunt.
Bear hunting is currently only allowed in Tensas, Madison, and East and West Carroll parishes. Hunters with the tags have to have a bear license and go through training.
The Louisiana black bear restoration is seen as a major conservation win. The state also saw success through its efforts to restore populations of the American alligator, which is also now allowed to be hunted.
“We went out and we worked with private landowners to really increase the capacity on private land,” said LDWF Secretary Madison Sheahan. "So throughout this process, millions of acres of habitat has actually been restored in Louisiana to be able to use conservation easements and other projects to be able to increase the habitat statewide.”
The LDWF will be monitoring the population to potentially increase or lower the number of bear tags released in later years. They also will look at expanding the regions where the bears can be hunted.
“When we're working with anything that was on the endangered species list at one time and we want to be very careful about what we do with this species, we want to make sure we're managing it so that it can be hunted by the sportsmen of the state,” Sheahan said.
