Pennsylvania Game News - February 2022 - 14

Pennsylvania hunters have been remarkably
consistent when it comes to putting black
bears in the state's Big Game Records book.
They harvested 29 record bears in 2016,
25 in 2017, 26 in 2018, and 25 in 2019. They
added 12 more in 2020, a number that may
grow since records often take time to trickle in.
The Northcentral Region led the way,
accounting for 40 record-book bears in that
five-year span. The Northeast added 27, the
Northwest 24, the Southcentral 12, the Southeast
nine, and the Southwest five.
Three counties - Lycoming, Tioga and
Bradford - each put eight bears in the book.
No other county tallied more.
Hunters took seven record bears in Clinton
County, six in Luzerne County, five each in
Carbon, Clarion and Forest counties, and four
each in Monroe, Sullivan, Pike, Venango and
Warren counties.
All of those are within Pennsylvania's
traditional bear range.
But - and this should give hunters everywhere
hope - record-book bears come from
all over. Thirty-eight of the state's 67 counties
produced at least one between 2016 and
2020. That includes such outside-the-norm
spots as Berks, Butler, Dauphin, Lebanon and
York counties.
Emily Carrollo, the Game Commission's
black bear biologist. She noted that it might
take 9 or 10 years, on average, for a black
bear to grow a record-book skull.
Body-wise, though, they can hit 500
pounds in half that time or less, provided
they're blessed with the right genetics and
able to take advantage of lots of food. In the
past five years, estimates are that as many
as 11 hunter-harvested bears hit 500 pounds
by age 3, 23 others by age 4.
" Bears can be really fat but not very old
yet and may not have grown into their full
potential bone structure despite being very
heavy, " Carrollo said. " So in reality, unless
it's a very large bear, 700 pounds plus, I
would say there's little correlation between
just size and skull size. "
Really fast-growing bears are the exception
to the rule, Carrollo added. But they
14
show what's possible, too.
" The Pennsylvania black bear has always
baffled me, " said Justin Spring, director of
the Big Game Records program for the
Boone and Crockett Club. " We get pictures
of those Pennsylvania bears and I joke,
that's a different animal.
" It's like, good grief, what are they feeding
them? "
BOOK CLUB
Every region of the state produces
record-book bears, roughly in proportion
to their respective total harvests.
The Northcentral Region, for example,
accounted for 35 percent of the bears
harvested and 34 percent of those entered
into the Game Commission's record book
between 2016 and 2020. Likewise, the
Northeast Region produced 27 percent of
the bear harvest and 23 percent of the record
bears over that time.
The one region that sort of " overperformed "
is the Northwest. It generated
13 percent of all bears, but 21 percent of
record bears.
" The black bear population in the Northwest
Region has been expanding for years,
and with areas like the Alleghany National
Forest that provide great bear habitat, I
would expect it to continue this trend of
producing more bears and bigger bears than
it has in the past, " Carrollo said.
But no region gives up really, really big
bears quite like the Northeast.
Between 2016 and 2020, the Northeast
produced 37 of the 75 bears harvested statewide
weighing 600 to 699 pounds, five of
the nine going 700 to 799 pounds, and the
one topping 800 pounds.
Breaking that down further, 30 of the
Northeast's 600-plus-pound bears came
from the greater Pocono area: Luzerne
County had eight, Monroe, Pike and Wayne
counties six each and Carbon County four.
The only other counties in the state
to produce at least four bears going 600
REGIONS & RECORDS
Pennsylvania Game News - February 2022

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