From PA Game Commission
Pennsylvania’s hunters took 3,608 black bears in the 2020 seasons, the state’s sixth-best bear harvest ever.
While the harvest is about 20 percent lower than last year’s record harvest of 4,653 bears, it aligns with the annual average of 3,675 bears taken over the past five seasons, and it’s the second-highest harvest in that period.
In the bear archery season, which benefited from a one-week-longer season, bowhunters set a new harvest record of 948, breaking the former record of 561 set in 2019. Harvest numbers in the other bear seasons fell, which is not uncommon. The two-year-old muzzleloader/special firearms seasons harvest slipped from 1,340 to 1,038, the general firearms season harvest went from 1,629 to 1,170; and the extended season harvest, which typically is inconsistent, went from 1,117 to 432.
Bear harvest in 2020 was sixth best in Pennsylvania history
Updated Feb 02, 2021;
Posted Feb 02, 2021
Keith Davis shot a 610-pound male black bear in Monroe County during Pennsylvania s 2020 muzzleloader hunting season.
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Pennsylvania hunters killed 3,608 black bears during the 2020 hunting seasons, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
While the 2020 harvest was about 20 percent lower than the record harvest of 4,653 bears in 2019, it still ranks as the state’s sixth best.
And, according to commission biologists, it aligns with the annual average of 3,675 bears taken over the past five seasons. It’s the second-highest harvest in that period.
Bowhunters, who had a one-week-longer archery hunting season for bears in 2020, set a harvest record of 948, breaking the record of 561 set in 2019.