Opinion piece on the Spring Bear hunt

Came across this opinion piece in the North Bay news today. Admittedly I did skim through the last portion of it after I felt the author started to jump to conclusions on what sort of precedent the reintroduction of a spring hunt could set, I did however find much of the article well written and supported. It appears the author is a hunter (maybe formerly) so the perspective doesn't seem to be from the same non-sense Torontonian with no concept of what a bear actually looks like.

https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/o...thical-2107779

I was wondering how others on this forum felt about the article and any of the evidence the author relies upon for his argument.

Good written article. My concerns are the timelines of the one study he used.

Hunt canceled 1999

Made specific note of nuisance bear study 2003

I seem to recall articles alot closer to the reintroduction in 2014 of a lot of human/bears encounters. Strictly going off memory ... was there an elderly couple in Sudbury, bears in New Market, etc.

Do you think its possible the population expanded to much higher levels with the cancelation of the spring hunt?

Also, trophy hunt or not. Lodges, guides, outfitters etc. Lost alot of revenue. Black bears and other big game animals can and should be managed as a resource, both environmentally and economically.

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Just because I can go buy a steak at the grocery store and am not going hungry without bear meat doesn’t mean I don’t prefer bear meat and think it’s much more sustainable and healthy for my family

The fact that it’s a valid renewable resource should be good enough. No one is shooting sows with cubs and the population is healthy and stable so what is the issue?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FishHog

The fact that it’s a valid renewable resource should be good enough. No one is shooting sows with cubs and the population is healthy and stable so what is the issue?

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X2

ALL Natural Resources would need this approach:

Sustainable and Stable= Regulate and Harvest

Non Sustainable and /or Not stable = STOP harvesting until things change

This guy doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about
The worst right up I ever read
One of the line Mike Commito
“”””” Currently, the black bear is the only big game species that can be hunted during the spring when animals are rearing their young“””””””
This guy better go get his brain checked

I had a real hard time reading all of that garbage. Its another great writer that has no clue what he is blabbering on about.
He goes on about hunting animals while they are reproducing, all big game seasons line up when animals are doing the nasty, except spring bear!

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This is just another anti-hunting op-ed piece full of half truths and outright lies. He claims he's a hunter and that he's not against hunting "per se" which makes no sense and what I find very "telling" about the entire piece. This article gets filed under "T" for trash.

I found that Dr Commito,s study was pretty good over all and the following suggestions make good sense to me


Developing and implementing a mandatory
black bear hunting education course. This
would provide prospective hunters with
the proper education and tools to distinguish
male and female black bears and
also offer additional information on
hunting regulations, techniques, and safety.
It could be modelled on Ontario’s existing
course for turkey hunting.
• Requiring hunters to pursue black bears over
bait, particularly suspended bait sites. While
some see the tactic of baiting as an ethical
and sporting conundrum, it could provide
hunters with a better opportunity to identify the
sex of a black bear. In 2008 Dr. Martyn
Obbard and a team of researchers published
a study that examined the potential benefits
that suspended baiting could provide in this
capacity. They concluded that the proportion
of female harvest was similar at both
suspended and grounded bait sites but paired
with an education course, suspended baiting
could have merit.
• Scaling back the fall bear hunt. The autumn
season was previously extended in 1999 and
2004 to assuage hunters and outfitters after
the spring hunt cancellation. The
upcoming fall season runs for 11 weeks (August
15 to October 31) in most
WMUs in northern Ontario and 11-12
weeks (September 1 or 8 to November
30) in WMUs in southeastern and southwestern
Ontario that offer black bear hunting
opportunities. If a spring season is reintroduced,
the fall bear hunt should be scaled back
to avoid the potential for overhunting.
It is therefore recommended that the length
of the fall season should be reassessed,
particularly the start date, in order to limit the
amount of sustained hunting pressure on the animal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gilroy

I found that Dr Commito,s study was pretty good over all and the following suggestions make good sense to me


Developing and implementing a mandatory
black bear hunting education course. This
would provide prospective hunters with
the proper education and tools to distinguish
male and female black bears and
also offer additional information on
hunting regulations, techniques, and safety.
It could be modelled on Ontario’s existing
course for turkey hunting.
• Requiring hunters to pursue black bears over
bait, particularly suspended bait sites. While
some see the tactic of baiting as an ethical
and sporting conundrum, it could provide
hunters with a better opportunity to identify the
sex of a black bear. In 2008 Dr. Martyn
Obbard and a team of researchers published
a study that examined the potential benefits
that suspended baiting could provide in this
capacity. They concluded that the proportion
of female harvest was similar at both
suspended and grounded bait sites but paired
with an education course, suspended baiting
could have merit.
• Scaling back the fall bear hunt. The autumn
season was previously extended in 1999 and
2004 to assuage hunters and outfitters after
the spring hunt cancellation. The
upcoming fall season runs for 11 weeks (August
15 to October 31) in most
WMUs in northern Ontario and 11-12
weeks (September 1 or 8 to November
30) in WMUs in southeastern and southwestern
Ontario that offer black bear hunting
opportunities. If a spring season is reintroduced,
the fall bear hunt should be scaled back
to avoid the potential for overhunting.
It is therefore recommended that the length
of the fall season should be reassessed,
particularly the start date, in order to limit the
amount of sustained hunting pressure on the animal.

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It would be better for Bear hunting instructions through the OHEP classroom training module,especially after the turkey course has already been cancelled. Implementing one and cancelling the other makes no sense. Baiting has already been severely curtailed after the regulations restricted where and how bait stations can be built in proximity to roads,trails,tracks and distances to buildings being vastly increased. Lately,some amendments have been made. It remains to be seen if they're effective. "Spot and stalk" Bear hunting is becoming more popular in light of the bait station restrictions in the southern areas of the province where roads,trails and tracks are everywhere,but,it has it's draw backs when it comes to proper gender identification in the spring. Hunters must really be cognizant of the presence of tiny first-year cubs which are virtually invisible in dense foliage and tree tops. Inadvertent mistakes only serve to feed the anti-hunting rhetoric.
Adjustments to open season dates must only be done when accurate,verifiable science-based population data show downward numbers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gilroy

I found that Dr Commito,s study was pretty good over all and the following suggestions make good sense to me


Developing and implementing a mandatory
black bear hunting education course. This
would provide prospective hunters with
the proper education and tools to distinguish
male and female black bears and
also offer additional information on
hunting regulations, techniques, and safety.
It could be modelled on Ontario’s existing
course for turkey hunting.
• Requiring hunters to pursue black bears over
bait, particularly suspended bait sites. While
some see the tactic of baiting as an ethical
and sporting conundrum, it could provide
hunters with a better opportunity to identify the
sex of a black bear. In 2008 Dr. Martyn
Obbard and a team of researchers published
a study that examined the potential benefits
that suspended baiting could provide in this
capacity. They concluded that the proportion
of female harvest was similar at both
suspended and grounded bait sites but paired
with an education course, suspended baiting
could have merit.
• Scaling back the fall bear hunt. The autumn
season was previously extended in 1999 and
2004 to assuage hunters and outfitters after
the spring hunt cancellation. The
upcoming fall season runs for 11 weeks (August
15 to October 31) in most
WMUs in northern Ontario and 11-12
weeks (September 1 or 8 to November
30) in WMUs in southeastern and southwestern
Ontario that offer black bear hunting
opportunities. If a spring season is reintroduced,
the fall bear hunt should be scaled back
to avoid the potential for overhunting.
It is therefore recommended that the length
of the fall season should be reassessed,
particularly the start date, in order to limit the
amount of sustained hunting pressure on the animal.

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Funny, this sounds very close to the Animal rights group based out of london. Well they say they are stewards of the natural resources, they fudge the facts and spread out right lies. They say 60% of bears killed in the spring hunt are female, because the need to feed cubs drive mothers to bait when they would not normally use a bait site.