South Carolina hunters killed a record number of black bears during the recently completed fall hunting season, reflecting an overall rise in bears harvested for sport in the Palmetto State during the past five years.
Animal welfare supporters say they are worried about the trend because bear hunting is a cruel activity that threatens populations of the big animals. One recent scientific study indicates hunting has affected bear populations in parts of the southeast.
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But state wildlife officials say South Carolina appears to have enough black bears to sustain the increased harvests.
Records show that hunters harvested 131 bears in the state’s mountain counties and 38 bears in coastal counties during the late October hunting season. South Carolina has never recorded that many bear kills in either area, according to the state wildlife department.
The 131 bears killed in mountain counties this year marks the fifth straight season in which hunters have harvested more than 100 bears in that part of South Carolina, records kept by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources show.
Until the past five seasons, hunters had only once killed more than 100 bears during a single year in the state’s mountain counties since 1970, the first year records were kept. The only other year with more than 100 bear kills was 2013, which held the previous record of 127 taken by hunters.
An abundance of food, expanded hunting territories and an increasing number of hunters may account for the recent trends in mountain counties, a stronghold for black bears in South Carolina. Looser hunting rules on the coast might also have contributed to the rise in bears killed there, state officials said.
The number of people registered to hunt bears with dogs in the mountains has gone up from fewer than 1,000 in 2015 to more than 1,300 this year, DNR records show.
South Carolina law allows hunters to use dogs to track bears for one week of the two-week hunting season in the mountains of Oconee, Pickens and Greenville counties. Using dogs to hunt bears is not allowed the other week in the mountains or in the handful of areas outside the mountains with limited bear-hunting seasons.
The DNR did not have statistics this week to show if bear populations have increased recently but the agency has said it receives many reports of nuisance bears that indicates the population is thriving.
South Carolina has about 1,000 to 1,600 bears, the majority in the mountains, DNR officials estimate. Part of the reason the state allows bear hunting in some areas is to keep the population from growing too much, which can cause conflicts with people, state officials say. The state for the first time allowed hunting in the lower elevations of Oconee, Pickens and Greenville counties, as well as Spartanburg, several years ago.
“Our numbers have been trending higher over the past decade because the bear population is expanding,’’ said Tammy Waldrop, a wildlife biologist with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. “There has been an increase in the number of hunters, also, who could participate in that increased harvest.’’
But Waldrop said the biggest reason for the increased mountain harvest may relate to food: bears have found it easier to locate nuts in certain areas of the southern Appalachians of South Carolina in recent years. That makes it easier for hunters to locate the areas where the bears feed.
In eastern Oconee County, for instance, white oak trees dropped substantially more acorns this year, causing bears to congregate in the area, she said. Bears find white oak acorns particularly succulent.
Bears killed by hunters in South Carolina are often in the 150-200 pound-range, but sometimes can exceed 500 pounds, Waldrop said. The largest bear killed this year was a 550-pound bruin in eastern Oconee County. The state record is a 609-pound bear.
Bear hunting is a controversial but long-standing tradition in the southern Appalachians, occurring for generations in South Carolina and other southeastern states. Mountain people historically killed the bears for food and clothing, although critics say bear harvests today amount to little more than trophy hunts.
Coastal areas near Myrtle Beach also have wild populations of black bears that move back and forth along river corridors from the North Carolina coast. Through the years, black bears have been regularly killed by motorists as the animals scampered across highways in the Myrtle Beach area.
South Carolina legalized bear hunting in that part of the state about 10 years ago. And in 2021, the state for the first time allowed hunters to use bait to attract bears on the northern coast, a result of a change in the law by the Legislature.
That is likely the reason for the sharp rise from 2 bears harvested in that area in 2020 to 38 this past hunting season, said Waldrop and Charles Ruth, the DNR’s big game program coordinator. The highest number of bears previously reported killed by hunters on the coast was 14 in 2017, records show.
Wendy Keefover, who tracks bear hunting issues for the Humane Society of the United States, said the number of bears killed by hunters in South Carolina and other places is a concern and appears to go against public opinion.
One recent study, for instance, found that much of the public takes a dim view of trophy hunting, as opposed to hunting for meat or wildlife management, the society said. Hunting for deer, elk and birds is more acceptable than for other animals, such as mountain lions, wolves and bears, according to the 2019 report for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
Another recent study indicates that hunting has taken a toll on bear populations in recent years in the southern Appalachian mountains of the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee.
The 2021 study, by researchers at the University of Tennessee, found decreasing growth rates in bear populations since 2009. It noted that easier hunting rules contributed to the trend.
“Harvest rates approached or exceeded a theoretical maximum in some jurisdictions and population trend data indicated population declines in most jurisdictions in recent years,’’ according to the report. “Although this response to recently liberalized harvest regulations was not unexpected, continued monitoring of bear populations …. would help to ensure that population trajectories continue to be consistent with management goals.’’
Despite that, the bear population overall has generally increased in the southeastern United States since the 1970s, in part because forests have rebounded and provided more habitat, said Sean Murphy, a University of Kentucky bear researcher. Before the 1970s, black bear populations had been declining. As more people moved into the countryside beginning in the 1800s, forests were chopped down and settlers killed bears because they feared the animals, Murphy said.
The Humane Society says bear hunting, unlike deer or turkey hunting, is little more than a trophy sport. Hunters generally are not looking to eat the bears they kill, only to display parts for show, Keefover said. Some have questioned whether bear parts are sold on the black market overseas.
“The primary motivation is to acquire body parts for display: the head, claws, the whole cape, as opposed to hunting for food,’’ Keefover said in an interview with The State. “Some people eat bears, but that is not their primary motivation.’’
Data from state agencies found that hunters killed nearly 51,000 bears in 2020 across the country, the most in at least a decade, according to research by the Humane Society. The Humane Society says it is concerned because bears sometimes do not reproduce quickly enough to overcome harvests.
“Black bears should not be killed by the tens of thousands for fun and bragging rights under the state-sanctioned guise of management,’’ Keefover said, noting in a recent news release that “this isn’t an animal problem, it’s an agency problem.’’
