At its July 12 meeting in Raleigh, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission unanimously voted to approve recommendations for bear management that staff biologists had been working on for two years.
The plan is basically a blueprint for the next 10 years and contains information about the history of North Carolina’s black bears, harvest data, interactions with humans, eastern and western populations, hard-mast trends, sex ratios in bear harvests, average weights (340 pounds for males, 200 pounds for females) of harvested bears and the effects of new baiting laws.
Concerns that the Commission would change or end baiting weren’t part of the 10-year plan.
“The baiting discussion continues and is independent of the bear-management plan,” said Dr. David Cobb, head of the Commission’s Division of Wildlife Management. “(The plan) is only an operational framework; it has no specific regulation changes.
“Any (bear) changes will happen in the future as part of the regulations process.”
No proposed changes for the 2013 season will be offered at the public hearings to be held around the state in September, Cobb said.
A proposal in a draft bear-management plan included a special black bear license to be sold so the Commission could keep better tabs on effort and harvests. Currently, one bear tag per season is included in the Commission’s big-game permits. That tag apparently will not change in the near future.
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