{"id":43194,"date":"2024-10-28T17:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T21:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=43194"},"modified":"2024-10-28T17:08:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T21:08:19","slug":"maryland-hunters-harvest-125-black-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/10\/28\/maryland-hunters-harvest-125-black-bears\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland Hunters Harvest 125 Black Bears for 2024 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 369px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53216047689_79539b3256.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of black bear walking across a field\" width=\"359\" height=\"277\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Mitch Adolph, submitted to Maryland DNR Photo Contest.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maryland hunters harvested 125 black bears during the state\u2019s 21<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> annual black bear hunt held Oct. 21-26 in Allegany, Frederick, Garrett, and Washington counties. The 2024 harvest was higher than the previous 5-year average of 104 bears.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 2024 harvest consisted of 52 male and 73 female bears. Total harvest from each county was 80 from Garrett County, 24 from Allegany County, 11 from Washington County, and 10 from Frederick County. The largest bear had a live weight of 650 pounds and was taken in Frederick County. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An additional 16 bears (8 male and 8 female) were harvested between August 15 and October 27 by farmers with agricultural damage permits.\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMany hunters enjoyed a week of trekking through western Maryland\u2019s mountains pursuing one of the state\u2019s most elusive game species,\u201d <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dnr.maryland.gov\/Pages\/default.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maryland Department of Natural Resources<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Wildlife and Heritage Service Director Karina Stonesifer said. \u201cThe state\u2019s bear hunting season is an essential part of the management strategy to mitigate human-bear conflict throughout the expanding black bear range.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite warm daytime temperatures early in the week, hunters were able to harvest 22 more bears during the 2024 season than during the 2023 season. The daily harvest stayed relatively consistent throughout the weeklong season and many hunters attributed their success to locating hickory or white oak stands where nuts and acorns were abundant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2024 Maryland black bear hunt by the numbers:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">169 pounds was the average weight of bears taken<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">70% of bears were taken on private land<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">4,507 hunters applied for a permit<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">950 permits were awarded<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">More information about black bear management in Maryland is available on the department\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dnr.maryland.gov\/wildlife\/Pages\/hunt_trap\/BlackBear.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maryland hunters harvested 125 black bears during the state\u2019s 21st annual black bear hunt held Oct. 21-26 in Allegany, Frederick, Garrett, and Washington counties. The 2024 harvest was higher than the previous 5-year average of 104 bears. The 2024 harvest consisted of 52 male and 73 female bears. Total harvest from each county was 80<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/10\/28\/maryland-hunters-harvest-125-black-bears\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,3172],"tags":[2948,3960,3531,2918,2949,2909],"class_list":["post-43194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-hunting","tag-allegany-county","tag-black-bear-hunt","tag-black-bears","tag-frederick-county","tag-garrett-county","tag-washington-county"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43194"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43197,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43194\/revisions\/43197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}