Howdy folks,
This spring in 2026 the Kentucky fish and wildlife department came out with some very strange estimates. First was the 13,000 elk, and then it was the 1000- 1500 black bears statewide.
Over the last 2 years 2024 and 2025 the black bear harvest exceeded the elk harvest.
Kentucky has a series of very short limited black bear seasons that are fairly consecutive.
After wrapping up the two early archery seasons and the early 5-day Hound kill season the state had already broken its previous harvest record of 229 bears set back in 2024.
Now mind you this is only the fourth year of having an actual non-quote bear hunting season.
Kentucky's bear hunting is limited into three zones. Zone one is Three counties that hold presumably about 50% of the bear population, bear Zone 2 is 41 counties, and bear Zone 3 is two counties.
The total area is a little over 10 million acres. With about 9% of that is public land, and 5% of that is reclaimed mining area.
As of this moment the total harvest is 275 bears. We are experiencing a 35% harvest inflation this year. If we follow this trend our harvest should be somewhere between 350 - 375 black bears.
This harvest might sound very menial to a lot of black bear hunters out west. But with only having an estimated 1,250 bears statewide. This raises a lot of questions.
Kentucky has a total of 43 calendar days to hunt black bear starting in September and ending in December. Mostly archery hunting. With 24 of those days being archery.
If you take an account to the length of the seasons and the bear populations from Virginia West Virginia and North Carolina. They routinely harvest about 10% of their population.
But I don't think it's fair to assume that Kentucky is even harvesting 5% of their population with the limited hunting access, and limited seasons.
This spring in 2026 the Kentucky fish and wildlife department came out with some very strange estimates. First was the 13,000 elk, and then it was the 1000- 1500 black bears statewide.
Over the last 2 years 2024 and 2025 the black bear harvest exceeded the elk harvest.
Kentucky has a series of very short limited black bear seasons that are fairly consecutive.
After wrapping up the two early archery seasons and the early 5-day Hound kill season the state had already broken its previous harvest record of 229 bears set back in 2024.
Now mind you this is only the fourth year of having an actual non-quote bear hunting season.
Kentucky's bear hunting is limited into three zones. Zone one is Three counties that hold presumably about 50% of the bear population, bear Zone 2 is 41 counties, and bear Zone 3 is two counties.
The total area is a little over 10 million acres. With about 9% of that is public land, and 5% of that is reclaimed mining area.
As of this moment the total harvest is 275 bears. We are experiencing a 35% harvest inflation this year. If we follow this trend our harvest should be somewhere between 350 - 375 black bears.
This harvest might sound very menial to a lot of black bear hunters out west. But with only having an estimated 1,250 bears statewide. This raises a lot of questions.
Kentucky has a total of 43 calendar days to hunt black bear starting in September and ending in December. Mostly archery hunting. With 24 of those days being archery.
If you take an account to the length of the seasons and the bear populations from Virginia West Virginia and North Carolina. They routinely harvest about 10% of their population.
But I don't think it's fair to assume that Kentucky is even harvesting 5% of their population with the limited hunting access, and limited seasons.
