Northwestern Ontario has always had a plentiful population of black bears. The Spring season was stopped for 17 years for political reasons not biological. The general consensus was that resulted in an increase in population. I didn’t notice it. We have always had lots of bears and if we have a blueberry crop failure—they freeze out every 5 years or so—then we have lots of problems with bears coming into town knocking over garbage cans.
Done properly bear baiting is a lot of work, Lord knows I did it for more than 30 years. I can vouch for the guy in Nipigon—he’s competent. Nipigon River Bear Hunts i think its called.
I ran hounds for a lot of years so when they closed the Spring off here i went to Wisconsin. Good program there for houndsmen that just want to train and don’t care about killing one.
