Kentucky bear hunters are skunked because of Mother Nature | Los Angeles Times

The first black bear hunt held in Kentucky in more than 100 years ended with hunters reporting zero of the animals shot, on account of a major storm that moved through the area and dumped enough snow to make hunting impossible.”Most secondary roads were impassable due to snow or fallen trees,” Steven Dobey, Kentucky Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Resources bear biologist, said in a news release.”Hunters simply couldn't get to the areas they intended to hunt — and likely would have taken bears.”The two-day bear hunting season was scheduled for Dec. 19 and 20 in Harlan, Letcher, and Pike counties in southeastern Kentucky.Black bears were nearly absent from Kentucky for about 150 years after intensive logging and unregulated hunting diminished their habitat and population. Today, however, black bears are reportedly more abundant than at any point since then.“Bears are now well established in eastern Kentucky and research shows that population growth has risen steadily over the last 20 years,” said Dobey.No word as to if next year's season will be scheduled to take place earlier in the month, though the quota of 10 male or five female bears does come into play on the timing. Ongoing tracking of radio-collared bears shows that most females enter dens during the first week in December, thus concentrating hunting efforts on male bears.– Kelly Burgess

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