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This December, a handful of Louisiana hunters will have the opportunity to participate in a black bear hunt in their home state for the first time in decades. The last time Louisiana held a black bear hunt was in 1987.<\/p>\n

The upcoming 2024 black bear hunt was formally authorized on Tuesday at a Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting<\/a>, during which the LFWC adopted a Notice of Intent<\/a> that defines the regulations around the hunt, including dates, areas, bag limits, and legal methods of take. The Notice also establishes a lottery system to allocate the 10 available black bear tags to resident hunters.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s decision was to be expected, since the same group of wildlife commissioners voted unanimously to establish the hunting season<\/a> in November 2023. Their more recent decision was more than just a formality, since last November\u2019s vote ignited a controversy that could have derailed these prospects. On Dec. 31, a coalition of animal rights groups launched a petition<\/a> to block the proposed hunt. The petition<\/a>, which has garnered more than 31,000 signatures since then, asserts that black bears are a state symbol and claims their population isn\u2019t large enough to sustain a regulated hunt. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Next:<\/strong> Photos From the New Jersey Bear Season, the Highly Controversial Hunt That Wasn\u2019t<\/a><\/p>\n

Officials with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries disagree, and they\u2019ve supported the idea of bringing back a black bear hunt. LDWF large carnivore manager John Hanks estimates the statewide population is at least 1,200 bears, and last fall he told commissioners this was sufficient to have a \u201cconservative harvest in limited areas,\u201d according to the Shreveport Times<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Most of these bears live in the northeastern corner of the state \u2014 the same region where the 2024 hunt will take place \u2014 and state lawmakers there have also pushed for regulated hunting as a way to manage the state\u2019s growing bear population. They point out that the species has bounced back in a big way since 1992, when Lousiana black bears (a distinct subspecies of black bear and the official state mammal) were added to the Endangered Species List. This was four years after the state banned bear hunting altogether.<\/p>\n

By 2016, the species was officially deemed recovered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and federal protections were dissolved<\/a>. State wildlife biologists have continued to monitor their populations since then, and they say a carefully managed hunting season will have little impact on Louisiana\u2019s black bears.<\/p>\n