First Kentucky Bear Hunt in 100 Years

From the Rural Blog

A bear overpopulation led to what [was] the first legal Kentucky bear hunt in 100 years [last] weekend. “As bears have become a sight-seeing attraction and sometimes a nuisance for state parks in Harlan, Letcher and Pike counties [on the state's mountainous southeastern border], local hunters have been eager to add black bears as a big game animal,” Dori Hjalmarson of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

“Kentucky is kind of a unique spot in this region of the United States because they historically had not had bears in great numbers. West Virginia, Tennessee, Virginia have had bears for decades,” Steven Dobey, bear program manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, told Hjalmarson. “Their return has been, in the grand scheme, more recent.” Dobey estimates there are about 300 black bears in Letcher, Harlan and Pike counties, the only three open to bear hunting tomorrow.

There is a hard-to-explain compartmentalization that almost all hunters I know have in their personal morality. Some hunters will shoot anything that is legal while others are more selective. I am certainly in the latter camp. Part of my selectivity is that there are animals I simply won’t kill. Call it hypocritical but I know I could never take a bear. I find them to be amazing animals and for some reason the thought of pulling the trigger for sport is out of the question. Of course, if there was a real need, say bears killing livestock on a friend’s farm, I would do my part. Thankfully that will never be a problem in Kentucky with a small black bear population only.

I think what lesson needs to be taken from this bear season is not that hunters have a new animal they can kill, but that another species has returned to our state.  This follows success in restoring elk, turkey, aquatic species and even many native plants. Kentucky is slowly returning to the place it once was when settlers first came over the mountains. We should be thankful every day for that.