This summer, a black bear broke into a home in the town of Jamaica while the residents were away. They came home to a kitchen that had been ransacked. The fridge was open and empty, and food was strewn all over the house.
Most alarmingly of all, the electric stove was on.
“The bear was no longer in the house when they got there, but it was very clear what had happened, and that could have been a tragedy,” said Warden Kyle Isherwood. “Like, a house fire could easily have started from that.”
This was just one of roughly 1,800 bear-related calls and online reports Vermont’s 30 or so fish and game wardens have responded to so far this year — a figure that puts the state on track to set a new record.
Over the last 50 years, Vermont’s bear population has more than tripled after being decimated by widespread clear cutting of the state’s forests.
Today, state wildlife managers estimate there are between 7,500 and 8,900 bears roaming around Vermont, about twice what Vermont Fish and Wildlife says their population should be.
Because bears are so adaptable and have such diverse diets, scientists with the state say it’s difficult to say how many of them Vermont’s landscape can support, so those targets are heavily shaped by public tolerance of the animals, along with other analysis.
Now, the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife is proposing to extend Vermont’s bear hunting season from Sept. 1 to the end of deer season in mid-December, and to allow hunters to take two bears instead of one in some parts of the state.
It’s a move many bear hunters in the state support, says Mike Covey, with the local hunting and trapping advocacy group Vermont Traditions Coalition, though he says the late season will prove a challenging time to hunt the animals, which he says are elusive that time of year and difficult to track in the snow.
“There are some that don’t think what they’re proposing is enough, and that will remain to be seen,” Covey said. “The steps they’re taking, I think, are reasonable stepping off points. … We’re seeing a lot more conflict, and it’s reasonable to expect that with growing bear populations, we’re going to see those conflicts grow.”
But Brenna Galdenzi of Protect Our Wildlife opposes expanding the bear season. She points to research from Canada and Minnesota that suggests increased hunting doesn’t always reduce bear conflicts. And says the proposed later season dates overlap with a period of the year when many bears are hibernating.
Galdenzi wants to see Vermont explicitly ban hunting bears in their dens, and she says Vermont should double down on stricter rules about how people store their garbage and other potential food.
“They [Vermont Fish and Wildlife] recognize that human-bear conflicts are going to continue in Vermont unless we get to the root cause of the problem, which is unsecured food attractants,” Galdenzi said.
To date, much of what Vermont knows about its bear population comes from roadkill, and from the tooth samples hunters are required to supply at weigh stations.
In an effort to better understand why Vermont’s bears are booming, Vermont Fish and Wildlife last year launched a new research effort to collar and track sows, to learn whether bears are having more frequent or bigger litters.
State bear biologist Jaclyn Comeau says knowing what’s driving this growth — and if it’s something that will stick around in the face of climate change and other landscape changes — is critical for finding solutions.
In the meantime, more bears are being killed by cars in Vermont and in human conflicts. This year alone, 12 bears have also been killed illegally — more than twice the average for the last five years.
“Seeing an increase in the number of bears killed illegally in conflict situations is a red flag, right? Like that’s one of those red flags that we might be starting to push up beyond public tolerance for this animal on the landscape,” Comeau said.
Isherwood, the warden, says people can help by securing their dumpsters and garbage cans, preferably in a locked shed or garage. Bird feeders should be removed between snowmelt and mid-December, and the state advises people to put electric fencing around their chicken coops and beehives, as well as regularly emptying their grill grease traps.
But asking a trash hauler for a bear-proof dumpster often carries an upcharge, and buying electric fencing is a big investment a lot of people can’t afford.
“That's, I think, where some people get frustrated and take matters into their own hands because a single round of ammunition is a lot cheaper than upgrading their fencing system,” he said.
As state wildlife managers propose extending the bear season, they are also seeking to ban the killing of bear sows with cubs — a move that has garnered broad support from hunters and advocacy groups like Protect Our Wildlife.
The Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife is looking for public feedback about the proposed rule changes at a public hearing in Bennington on Aug. 27, and by phone or email through Sept. 4.
