Lousiana Black Bear

A few years ago, I was hunting a ridge back in a swamp in south Louisiana. Evening had come and I hadn't seen anything all day; but as the sun was setting fast, I was getting the feeling that something has to walk out soon. About twenty minutes before dark, I started to hear the palmettos cracking and breaking. Six hogs were moving slowly towards my stand. As they were making their way to the edge of the shooting lane, there was a grunt and a growl behind me that sent the hogs running in the opposite direction. I've never heard anything like it before.

I had not heard that noise again until this year. After a morning hunt on that same piece of property,I was walking down the levee back to my truck when I heard the noise again. When I turned around, I saw what appeared to be a 400-500 pound hog walking in the thicket about forty yards away. As long as I've hunted this land, I've never seen anything quite that big there so then I decided maybe it wasn't a hog after all, but perhaps a black bear. When I told my buddy about it, he laughed and said black bears have been seenin the area before but it is uncommon; more than likely, it was just a big hog. A few days later, I left for offshore and called my buddy while I was there. He had checked the trail cameras on his lunch break that day and found the lid to my feeder torn off. Turns out, it was a bear and the pictures are my proof. The grunt and growl that I had heard a few years ago and again this year was, indeed, a black bear!

In the area that we hunt, there isn't a big population of bears, however in other areas, the population is increasing. I'm wondering if Louisiana will ever open a season on them, and I don't mean an open season, but a lottery hunt. There is a good population of black bears where my father-in-law works. On numerous occasions, there has been one that tried breaking into his work house. Also, almost every time he comes home from his seven days of working, there are bear prints all over where they climb on the hood and in the bed of the truck. I'm all for the conservation and promoting the restoration of the Louisiana black bear, but what is Louisiana going to do now that they are beginning to be a nuisance in some areas? This season, there have been several bears shot mistakenly for hogs. Just this year, a man shot two small bears that he believed to be hogs. He did the right thing by turning himself in when he realized they weren't hogs, but black bears. Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries' agents are investigating another incident where someone shot a black bear near Lydia in Iberia Parish. Apparently, the female bear was too badly injured to live in the wild so when she was found by authorities, she was euthanized. This is at least the sixth black bear shot and killed in Louisiana since October 2009. The Louisiana black bear has been under federal protection since 1992 as a threatened species. Years to come, I believe there will be more of the same incidents across Louisiana. It is up to us hunters to make sure that we know what we are shooting at. Incidents like these can be avoided.