is it time to open hunting?  im a bit torn and have more questions than answers but i know hunters in cny who already have their bears picked out.  i know they have been landing in our school yards so they must be living in the surrounding hills somewhere.  is our landfills infested with them?  no.  do we wait for that to happen before we open season???????  i know they are out there.  i know they are breaking into camps and wandering around downtown yet ive never seen one while out hunting.  go canoing and you will find mom and cubs out though.  quite possible the population does justify hunting before we end up with the same problems as they have in the catskills and adirondacks but hunters arent looking in the right places. 

I think it is too early to open up bear in these areas. Too many young bear and sows will get taken. Also, I think that rifles should be used and many of these areas do nto allow rifle hunting.

I think this is ridiculous. I have been hunting Erie and Cattaraugus counites for years and have seen tracks once - about 5 years ago. I'm not sure how DEC gets their information on bear poplations, but they are dead wrong. Sounds like a ploy to get more license sales.

i have hunted theses hills in broome county for 17 years only ever seen one bear while hunting spending 8 to ten hours in the woods is not uncommon for me so IMHO there are not enough bear in broome county for a season

I have been hunting in Honeoye in Ontario County on family property for 26 years, I have seen bear scat and prints on the property for all of those 26 years, but only seen a bear once and that was 2 years ago.

For the longest time, up till about 5 – 7 years ago, DEC officials have said that they were not many bear in this area and declined to acknowledge the fact that were resident bear.

All of sudden you are telling us we have enough bear to justify a hunting season in this part of the state, I don’t think so. I believe that is coming about because of the lack of knowledge that the general public has concerning bear. As you guys know, bear are not going to harm people unless provoked, most bear are living far enough away from the population that no harm will come. Just because people who live well off the beaten path see them in their yard, or have them get in their garbage does not justify a season.

I do believe that someday a bear season will be needed to control the population but now is not the time. Let’s give them another 7 – 10 years to grow in population, and use that time to educate the public and hunters on bear.

It’s my opinion that if bear season was to open in this part of the state that what you would see is a large number of young bear being killed in stead of older mature bear.

I just wanted to give my 2 cents in on the subject and hope that what I have to say might help change you mind in expanding the bear hunting area for 2008.

Thanks for your time.

I would like to hear any comments you might have concerning my comments, feel free to contact me at leighstatt@hotmail.com