Nature Isn’t Gentle: Why Managed Bear Hunting is Beneficial for Ecosystems

AmmoLand ^ | February 18,2026 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

While studying the reality of people protecting themselves from increasing populations of bears, it is impossible to ignore the emotional arguments of those who oppose the human killing of bears.

It is as if the opponents of human management believe bears to be immortal, never to die except at the hands of human hunters.  This is a false, emotional, irrational belief structure. All predators die. Death by human hunter is overwhelmingly less painful than death without human intervention.

Without human intervention, most bears die in one of three ways:

The most common is being killed and eaten by another bear. Mature males are overwhelmingly the greatest cause of mortality in bear cubs. Many boars learn to actively hunt denning females with cubs. Sometimes they only kill and eat the cubs. Often they kill and eat the female as well.  When hunters reduce the numbers of mature males, the number of cubs which survive to become adults increase. Death by predation from a bear is not quick and painless. Bears kill by tearing at and biting their prey to immobilize it. Bears often start eating before the prey is dead.

The second most common death is by starvation. Food available to bears is limited in any area. When food is plentiful, the bear population booms. When the food supply becomes restricted, for any number of reasons, such as weather, fire, insect infestation, excessive predation, or cyclical reduction of production of nuts and berries, the maximum population cannot be supported. The weakest, because of age, injury, or size, die by starvation. It is a slow, painful death. The weakest are also killed and eaten by other bears.

The third most common is by accident.  Animals are not immune to accident.

---

TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: banglist; bears; management; nature

[marktwain]

Natural existence is brutal, bloody, and painful.

[Sirius Lee]

They're thick as ticks in this state. Even down in the highly populated valley. Breaking into houses and cars.

They need to be culled, but it's a blue state full or weirdos and AWFULs.

Actually, now that I think of it, some mauling of the aforementioned might not be such a bad thing.

[marktwain]

Can you tell us what state you are referencing?

[Sirius Lee]

The state to where your namesake retired when it was once beautiful, industrious, and free.

[Buttons12]

In my PA neck o’ the woods, killing a bear will get you at least a hearty pat on the back. Often a well-attended barbecue.

[Carry_Okie]

The state to where your namesake retired when it was once beautiful, industrious, and free.

It is no longer possible to hide behind such a euphemism. It took me 20 seconds to identify that State.

[Carry_Okie]

When the food supply becomes restricted, for any number of reasons, such as weather, fire, insect infestation, excessive predation, or cyclical reduction of production of nuts and berries, the maximum population cannot be supported.

In California, vegetative succession without fire allows oak woodland to become so dense as to confine the food supply to acorns only.

[Paal Gulli]

Managed hunting is beneficial for all wild game. What the bunny-huggers contribute to the cause of wildlife management is a drop in the ocean compared to what sportsmen spend for licenses and game tags, and significant amounts of that go back into game management and environment preservation. There are significantly more whitetail deer in my home state than when the first Europeans came because the modern sportsmen have monetized their every aspect of their management.

And controlled culling is essential to herd health. Not just controlling for diseases like chronic wasting, but also limiting over-grazing due to overpopulation. The bunny-huggers are forever blaming the pioneers for the demise of the American bison but the truth is the plains buffalo herds already were in decline before the transcontinental railroad was even dreamed up because the herds were SO YUGE that they were overgrazing the Great Plains’ sea of grass.

[Sirius Lee]

I wasn't so much trying to hide my home state of Connecticut so much as to play on the posters name and to lament what it no longer was when Twain lived here.

"Of all the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief. It is a city of 40,000 inhabitants, and seems to be composed almost entirely of dwelling houses—not shingle-shaped affairs, stood on end and packed together like a “deck” of cards, but massive private hotels, scattered along the broad, straight streets, from fifty all the way up to two hundred yards apart. Each house sits in the midst of about an acre of green grass, or flower beds or ornamental shrubbery, guarded on all sides by the trimmed hedges of arbor-vitae, and by files of huge forest trees that cast a shadow like a thunder-cloud. Some of these stately dwellings are almost buried from sight in parks and forests of these noble trees. Everywhere the eye turns it is blessed with a vision of refreshing green. You do not know what beauty is if you have not been here." ~ MT

[Carry_Okie]

Sounds lovely. The description reminds me of neighborhoods I saw in Pella, Iowa, as archetypal American city as it gets.

[old school]

I’ve read that Bear meat is good eating.

Some people eat it by choice.

I’m hoping that I will never be compelled to eat anything I’m unaccustomed to.

It could happen!

I read that, during the Great Depression, people consumed squirrels out of existence.

[riverrunner]

I have eaten a fair number of black bears.

Lots of wild small game including squirrels.

All good eating

I place a good black bear at the top of the list of big game.

[Organic Panic]

My friend’s brother got two years in state prison for shooting a bear in his back yard. Californicata is a s hole.