Published: September 19, 2008 12:19 am         

Early W.Va. bear hunt starts

The reason for an early bear season in West Virginia is simple, according to Rich Rogers, the wildlife biologist who works out of Romney and deals with critters in a number of the state’s counties.

“Our nuisance complaints were terrible, horrendous from the spring of 2007 through the spring of 2008,” Rogers said. “There was not one month, including January and February when bears should be denned that we didn’t have nuisance complaints.”

In the counties of the Potomac Highlands and the Eastern Panhandle that fall into Rogers’ domain, he had calls about bears tearing up garbage cans, deer feeders, bird feeders, ATV seats, hot tubs and siding off of homes and cabins. “Of course they killed farm animals, too,” he said.

Rogers said an early hunt should result in the harvesting of more female bears than usual and will reduce the bruin population.

The hunt began Thursday in some southern counties of the Mountain State and gets under way tomorrow and continues through Saturday in counties such as Grant, Hardy, Pendleton, Preston and Tucker.

“We haven’t has an early hunt for more than a couple decades and that allowed the bear population to grow because most females are denned during the December season.

The rules for the standard late bear season will apply to this early bear hunt. If a county allows for December hunting with packs of dogs, then that goes for the early season too.

“Some people, and I’m talking people who hunt, are opposed to the early season, but we tell them that this is not a permanent hunt,” Rogers said. “It’s a management hunt and when it’s done we’ll look at the results and make another determination about whether or not we need to have it again in 2009.”

Rogers said the nut crop isn’t great this year, but that there are some acorns out there. “You’ll still find the bears in the woods, because some of the mast is there as well as good crops of grapes and blackberries. Bears really don’t like to expose themselves and be around people. They even prefer to eat acorns more than human food scraps.”

This early season is in addition to the annual hunt that takes place in December. As usual, the archery season for bears will begin in October, this year on the 18th.

It is illegal in West Virginia to hunt bears with the use of bait. In addition, hunters are prohibited from shooting at or killing a cub bear weighing less than 100 pounds or from killing any bear accompanied by cubs.

Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.