California May Let Hunters Take Two Bears Per Season
The California Fish and Game Commission takes up black bear hunting regulations on April 16, with a vote on whether to allow hunters to take two bears per season rather than the current one. The proposal would amend three sections of the commission’s rules — Sections 365, 365.5, and 366 — and apply statewide.
The timing lands in a familiar SoCal moment. A bear has been making itself at home in a Fillmore neighborhood in Ventura County for the better part of a week, hanging around Blaine Avenue with the casual confidence of an animal that has done this before and suffered no consequences.
For anyone who spends time in the foothills above Pasadena, Monrovia, La Cañada, or the communities along the base of the San Bernardinos, this is not news. Bears coming downslope into residential and recreational areas has shifted from exceptional to routine over the past decade.
California’s black bear population is estimated at between 30,000 and 40,000 animals and has been growing. Supporters of the expanded limit frame it as a population management tool — more tags means more harvest pressure, which theoretically stabilizes or reduces the population and reduces conflicts at the urban interface.
Critics argue that the evidence for hunting as a conflict-reduction strategy is weak, and that the more durable solutions involve better food storage infrastructure, trash management, and hazing programs that condition bears to avoid developed areas rather than eliminating individual animals.
Both sides have a point, and neither fully resolves the underlying tension: California has more bears than it used to, more people living at the edges of bear habitat than it used to, and no clean answer for what to do about it. The April 16 meeting is a public proceeding — if you have opinions, you can show up or submit comments in advance.
