Pennsylvania’s black bear biologist shares some of the unique places bears have denned this winter and explains what homeowners and hunters should expect this year with bear movements.
Brandon Snavely, theGame Commission’s black bear biologist, has been checking on the health of wild bears across the state including during the winter denning season.
“One interesting thing we did see was different den types through the state of Pennsylvania,” Snavely said. “One rare den type that we have in the state here is a tree den. It’s essentially a hollow tree. A lot of times it’s a hollow limb that could be 20, 30, 40 feet up in the air where bears will go in there,” he said. “We saw several of those down in the southcentral part of the state."
2025 recap:Pennsylvania hunters get at least 200 more black bears than last year
Dens high in the trees are avoided by the researchers for safety reasons for both the bears and the humans. A bear that’s partially anesthetized could fall out of the tree.
“If we can’t actively get to the bear just to maintain the vitals and do everything for a proper work-up, we won’t touch that,” he said.
They found bears denning in brush piles in timber cuts, rocky areas, holes in the ground, and the root area where a tree fell over. In the northcentral part of the state, he said many of the bears just nested on the ground. “It looks like a big bird nest on the ground,” he said.
His team is working on a five-year statewide bear survival project through 2029 for males and females. With radio-collars, they are able to track their movements and survival. He said they are looking at “what’s influencing their survival and what hunting seasons are most effective in different parts of the state.”
In February, they checked on females that have year-old cubs and placed temporary collars on 13 young bears.
“It’s no easy feat. Most times for yearling dens, they are a lot more active than a pregnant female is in a den. So, they’re much more aware of what’s going on,” he said. The collars can tear off if the bear grows too much.
They also checked on about 35 adult females that had cubs that were just born this winter. The mothers had between one and five cubs. “For bears in Pa., it’s roughly about three cubs per litter,” he said.
The cubs are checked for overall health and given metal ear tags to help researchers in the future if the bear is either trapped or taken by a hunter.
Black bear population in Pennsylvania
The agency estimates there are about 19,000 bears living across Pennsylvania. “It’s roughly what last year was,” he said.
When it comes to managing bears in Pennsylvania, he said the population is at a good number. “I’m sure there are areas in the state where there could be a little bit more and alternatively, there could be a little bit less with some conflicts of things,” he said.
Bears and people
In late spring and summer, bears are on the move and are often spotted in residential areas. The yearly cubs move away from their mothers in May to find their own territory and the adult females go into heat in mid-summer. “The July 4thholiday is what we refer to as the peak breeding season in the state here,” he said about bears.
“You have all these young bears that have been kicked out and are looking for easy food sources,” he said.
Homeowners are reminded not to have garbage cans or bird feeders out that may attract a hungry bruin. Bears are also attracted to the grease in barbecues and pet food that may be left outside.
“As soon as that food is no longer an option, the bears are moving on,” Snavely said.
They are most active at dawn and dusk, but some bears become habituated to people and are active at any time. “They are losing their fear of people,” he said.
Pennsylvania's 2025 bear harvest
“Last year’s harvest was slightly above two years ago. When we look at it, it’s 23rdall time. It’s 2,890 bears in all of the hunting seasons for bear last year,” he said.
The numbers are slightly down from the peak in 2020, but he said harvests are still higher than in the past.
“If we go back to 1980, there was 921 bears shot across all bear hunting seasons. So now when we were down a little bit below 3,000, some people thought we weren’t shooting enough,” he said. “Everything’s pretty stable. When we looked at the statewide population size and it seems like it’s been pretty stable for the last couple years as far as harvest and population."
Advertisement
The harvests were also lower because October hunting seasons, including archery seasons, were shortened.
“Part of that was to put more emphasis back on the rifle season. Some people were clamoring for that, but that’s where all of the main tradition of Pa. bear hunting came from is in that rifle season,” he said.
Big bears:Pennsylvania rifle hunters get 1,000 bears including a 717 pounder
The heaviest bear of last year was a 717-pound bear harvested by Nate Miller during the rifle season in Moraine State Park in Butler County.
Miller didn’t realize how large the bear really was until he walked up on it. Even then, he didn’t expect it to be the heaviest bear of the year so far. When he was making the initial phone calls, his friends wanted him to guess the weight and he said he estimated from his experience that it may weigh 300 pounds. “I’m not sure, I don’t know if I was in shock or what,” he said for a Nov. 24 story in this publication.
With the help of his family and friends and four people from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources who work at the park and provided a Gator ATV, they were able to retrieve the massive beast.
While many may have been surprised that a bear that size was living in a state park, Snavely said it’s not that unusual.
“There are big ones all across the state. I’ve seen plenty of big ones in state parks and state forests and everywhere in between,” he said.
This year appears to be no different as the PGC has already trapped some large bears in 2026 that will gain weight over summer and early fall. “We’ve trapped a couple bears this spring that have been right around 500 pounds coming off den season,” he said. “They are definitely setting up to be very large ones come fall there,” he said.
With bears sleeping most of the winter, they are at their lightest weight in the spring.
“When we catch them in the middle of the summer, the rule of thumb is they can put on 50% over the weight they currently are. So, in that case, a 200-pound bear come harvest season could be about a 300-pound bear. So, when we have something that we caught that was 484 pounds, that’s going to be a giant,” he said. The bear was found in northeastern Pennsylvania during an ongoing research project.
Bear hunting in 2026
For hunters this fall, he said they should expect opportunities like they’ve had in the past.
“I think everything is going to be the same as what it’s been for the last couple of years,” he said.
With the seasons, he said the board of commissioners added Wildlife Management Units (WMUs) 3C and 3D in northeastern Pennsylvania for longer archery seasons.
“That’s definitely an opportunity for people deer hunting or bear hunting doing a concurrent season in that area,” he said.
The archery season for those two WMUs and 5B in southeastern Pennsylvania is Oct. 3 to Nov. 20, the same time frame as archery deer season. For most of the state, archery bear season is only Oct. 17-25.
Hunters are required to purchase a bear license at a cost of $16.97 for residents, in addition to a general hunting license, which costs $20.97 for residents.
In the 2025-26 hunting year, the agency sold 199,108 bear hunting licenses which is roughly a quarter of all Pennsylvania hunters. With almost 3,000 bears harvested last year, it means less than 2% of hunters actually got a bear.
2026 black bear hunting seasons
For 2026, the hunting seasons are basically the same as last year with a few modifications.
For black bears, in Wildlife Management Units (WMUs) 3C and 3D in northeastern Pennsylvania, a longer archery bear season (overlapping with the entire first segment of the archery deer season) is approved to increase harvest in response to bear-human conflicts in these areas.
This year’s seasons include the following dates and hunters can only get one bear each license year:
-
Archery (WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D): Sept. 19-Nov. 27.
-
Archery (WMUs 3C, 3D and 5B): Oct. 3-Nov. 20.
-
Archery (WMUs 1A, 1B, 2A, 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F, 2G, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D, 4E and 5A): Oct. 17-25.
-
Muzzleloader (statewide): Oct. 22-25.
-
Firearms (statewide): Oct. 22-25, Junior and Senior License Holders, Mentored Permit Holders, Disabled Person Permit (to use a vehicle) Holders, and Pennsylvania residents serving on active duty in U.S. Armed Services or in the U.S. Coast Guard only. Also included are persons who have reached or will reach their 65th birthday in the year of the application for a license.
-
Firearms (statewide): Nov. 21-24.
-
Extended firearms (WMUs 2B, 5B, 5C and 5D): Nov. 28-Dec. 13
-
Extended firearms (WMUs 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D, 4C, 4E and 5A): Nov. 28-Dec. 6.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him atbwhipkey@usatodayco.comand sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook@whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American:About 19,000 bears live in Pa. and some den in unusual places.