A San Francisco Democrat has introduced a bill that would ban black bear hunting in California, despite a bear population at its highest levels in decades and repeated conflicts with the wild animals in Lake Tahoe and other high-tourist areas
On Monday, state Sen. Scott Wiener introduced Senate Bill 252, “The Bear Protection Act” sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States.
The bill would ban California’s sport hunting season that now allows for 1,700 bears killed in the fall and early winter. Under the bill, bears could still be killed under a permit to protect public safety, livestock and for scientific research.
Locally, around Lake Tahoe, bear populations have grown to some of the largest densities in the country, and bears have been aggressively breaking into vacation homes, and attacks on people happen from time to time.
The bill’s introduction comes as California’s statewide bear population has more than doubled in the past four decades. Black bears are not endangered. State officials estimate that in 1982, the statewide bear population was between 10,000 and 15,000 bears. The black bear population is now “conservatively estimated” to be between 30,000 and 40,000 animals, state officials say.
California’s limited bear-hunting season has had no impact on this statewide population growth.
In 2011, with bear populations growing, the state proposed increasing the state’s annual harvest quota to 2,000 bears, but the plan was scuttled after fierce opposition from the state’s influential cadre of environmentalists and animal rights activists. The next year, the state legislature banned hunting bears with hounds in a bill pushed by animal rights activists who called it barbaric.
We have too many black bears and they should allow a spring season (not just fall season) and baiting.
