Bear question

[mmi]

is it your farm ? bears have been known to roll down a field of corn .

[Bang]

Wipe the cartoon versions of bears from your mind while contemplating the matter. How much negative aspects does it take to become a positive conclusion?

There was a time when PA did not allow the taking of cubs. There is a reason that went away.

[Yoder]

Wipe the cartoon versions of bears from your mind while contemplating the matter. How much negative aspects does it take to become a positive conclusion?

There was a time when PA did not allow the taking of cubs. There is a reason that went away.

I agree. This was also on my mind. I know we humanize animals to a degree. The PGC is obviously trying to reduce numbers or they wouldn't have opened the season early and now allow muzzle loaders. If this was my corn I wouldn't be asking this question, I would just have dead bear pictures to post.

I don't know what it is about bears. If it was a deer I wouldn't think twice about killing it. Bears remind me of dogs I guess. We get a bunch of them around the house and they are just pretty cool animals.

[God's Country]

I agree. This was also on my mind. I know we humanize animals to a degree. The PGC is obviously trying to reduce numbers or they wouldn't have opened the season early and now allow muzzle loaders. If this was my corn I wouldn't be asking this question, I would just have dead bear pictures to post.

I don't know what it is about bears. If it was a deer I wouldn't think twice about killing it. Bears remind me of dogs I guess. We get a bunch of them around the house and they are just pretty cool animals.

My recommendation is if you intend to help out a farmer, which is fine, get a couple buddies together with tags and kill all three, so the cubs don't needlessly suffer.

[R L Suehr]

My recommendation is if you intend to help out a farmer, which is fine, get a couple buddies together with tags and kill all three, so the cubs don't needlessly suffer.

^^^this^^^

Cubs will most likely get eaten by another predator or starve to death without Mom. If you can't take all 3, I'd let momma go. I'd do the same with any animal including deer if they had a young fawn for some reason.

[Marcus99]

I personally would not if the cubs were that small in size. I don't think it would be a death sentence for the cubs necessarily, but it certainly wouldn't be best for their survival and I would not feel good about it personally.

[Qtrborecrazy]

How big are the cubs? If they are from this year let them all walk. If theyre from last year kill em?

[Sandcut]

As the resident bunny-hugger, my opinion is thus:

It is NOT always a bad thing to kill a sow with cubs. It is also not always a bad thing to kill one of the cubs.

If your goal is maintaining a stable population or reducing an overly large population, who cares what age the bears die at? As long as a certain number die. Think of what deer hunting was like in the late 90s to mid 2000s. Shoot as many antlerless deer as possible! And it lowered the herd #s to a level that wasn't wiping out the forest. If you shoot the mom, the cubs will most likely die. If not, the cub that survives is either 1. Lucky, or 2. Genetically superior in some way and it's these genes that you want reproducing in your population. Selective pressures select genetic fitness.

If your goal is to maintain a level populatiin or increase the populatiin size, then let her and the kids walk.

If you really want some meat or maybe a pelt, consider taking one of the cubs. The whole concept of not shooting cubs is grounded in a misplaced sense of galantry. Don't harm females or children. That or with the male preoccupation with "big things" to compare with other males with "big things". This could be antlers, bear, swimming pools, pickup trucks, etc.

Personally, I don't want to shoot some massive boar. What the hell am I going to do with 400 lbs. of bear meat? 50lbs. is more than I can consume in several years. Secondly, I hunt by myself. How in the holy hell am I going to get a 600lb. bear out of the woods by myself? People think I'm joking when I say " I want to shoot a bear small enough to fit on a kaiser roll". But, I'm not joking. I don't want a bear older than two years old. For all the reasons already stated. I had my rifle up to my shoulder and the sights right behind the shoulder of a nice 200-225-ish lb. sow two years ago. At about 60', no less. She never knew that I was there. But, I let her walk. No cubs. I just didn't want to deal with a bear that big.

Don't get caught up in anthropomorphism.

[Gunplummer]

I was around when a crew drug out a sow and two cubs. There were three, but one ran away. Two of the cubs would not leave the sow and followed them, so they shot them too. One of the crew went and got a lawn tractor and little trailer to bring them out the tracks. You had to walk right up and look in the trailer to even see the cubs. An old guy in town took scrap food up to the last cub all winter. It was a mild winter and he said the cub made it through. The reason the Game Commission made cubs legal was because the city folks would look at a bear at 100 yards and not know it was a cub. When they did see how small it was, most let it lay and took off. The Game Commission figured if people are going to shoot them anyway, may as well let them drag them out. If the bears are doing crop damage, chances are they will be trapped out before bear season anyway. It is amazing how close to bear season they will trap and relocate. Up to you, legal is legal

[Yoder]

I'm not shooting it. I don't need to kill a bear that bad.