Bear season opens in South Arkansas

Bear season in the Gulf Coastal Plain and portions of the South Arkansas Delta started Saturday and will end Dec. 15.

Myron Means, Large Carnivore Program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said the season may close earlier in each zone if the harvest quota is reached.

“We set quotas on bear hunting in most of the state to ensure we don’t overharvest our bears,” Means said. “A healthy female only has cubs every other year, so it can take a lot of time to recover the population if too many are harvested.”

For the first time in almost 100 years, bear hunting was allowed in 2022 in bear management zones 3 and 4. No bears were harvested in Zone 3, but the AGFC closed the season three days early in zone 4 when hunters reached the quota of 25.

“We actually harvested 28 bears, but a few bears were taken on that last day before the quota was reached, so that explains the slight overage,” Means said.

The quota in Zone 3 will be three bears. The quota will be 25 bears again in Zone 4.

Means urged hunters to avoid shooting female bears. They are identifiable if they have cubs. If you have multiple bears coming to a feeder or bait station at the same time, chances are good it’s a sow and her cubs.

“It’s legal to harvest a female, but those are the bears that are building and maintaining that south Arkansas bear population,” Means said.

“Even if the one or two smaller bears in the bunch are still fairly large, they’re likely cubs that are in their first year with the sow and need to stay with her until next spring,” Means said. “I can’t stress enough that hunters would be helping the population out a lot by passing on females with cubs and any collared bears they see, which are all female.”

Collared female bears are providing extremely valuable information on bear movements and habitat use in south Arkansas. This data will help the AGFC manage the bear population in this portion of the state much more effectively to continue offering this hunting opportunity.

“This is the second year of a monitoring project using satellite transmitters in collars that were part of a partnership with a group called Blood Origins,” Means said. “Last year we had 11 females overwinter with collars. We managed to put collars on more bears this year, but we’ve already lost two of those sows. Going into the season, we’re sitting at 12 collared bears giving us information on habitat use, so every collar we can keep out there is important.”

Visit agfc.com/hunting/more-game/bear/ for more information on bears and bear hunting in Arkansas.