Vermont Bear Hunting Rule Changes Draw Packed Public Input

Vermont’s bear rules are getting a hard public look, and that is exactly what should happen when a state is deciding how to manage a real big-game population.

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board is weighing changes that would replace the separate early and late bear seasons with one longer season running from Sept. 1 through the last day of the regulated deer seasons. Hunters would have to buy a bear tag to take a bear.

The proposal also lays out a hounding season beginning Sept. 1 for Vermont residents and Sept. 15 for nonresidents, running through the second Sunday after the start of the regular November deer season. It would allow a second bear tag in wildlife management units specified each year and prohibit taking sows with cubs.

Public input has been split, which should surprise nobody. Bear hunting always brings strong feelings. But feelings do not replace population data, conflict reports, hunter effort, harvest numbers and the need to keep bears wary of people. A state with bears needs rules that protect the resource while still allowing legal harvest where biology supports it.

The answer is not to let emotion run the season from either side. The answer is clear rules, clean enforcement and management that respects both wildlife and the people who live, farm, hunt and raise families in bear country. Legal bear hunters are part of that system, not the enemy of it.