The black bear population in Ontario has seen significant declines in a few areas of the province, according to a new population survey conducted by government researchers, raising concerns about the health of the bears and the impact of hunting them.
The research used DNA sampling to more accurately estimate the bear population throughout the province. The population survey found significant declines in the bear populations in an area north of Sudbury, Ont., and near Thunder Bay, Ont. Declines ranged from 20 to 40 per cent, although there is uncertainty over the exact percentages.
But declines at those levels were “likely related to human caused mortality either through conflict or harvest,” said Joe Northrup, research scientist at Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, referring to human-bear conflicts and hunting. He shared details from the research with CBC News, which is based on previously published and peer-reviewed methodology.
In other parts of the province, bear populations remained stable or rose. Areas in and around Algonquin Provincial Park, roughly 300 kilometres north of Toronto, saw about a 70 per cent increase in bears, according to Northrup, who is leading the massive effort to count black bears.
Bears are not considered to be threatened or endangered anywhere in the province, Northrup said, and the big question is what to do with the new data.
The new population numbers are adding to the debate over the spring bear hunt in Ontario, which has long been a flashpoint between the hunting and tourism sector and conservation groups.
There was no spring hunt during the last population count, but it was brought back in as a pilot in 2015, after which the new count began. In 2021, the Ontario government made the spring hunt permanent, even as bear advocates continued raising concerns over its impact on bear numbers.
Northrup heads up a lab at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., that researches human impacts on a range of wildlife like moose, elk and bears.
For the black bear population survey, researchers set up hundreds of bait stations from 2017 to 2022 across Ontario, testing tens of thousands of samples of DNA from bear hairs collected from the stations in the massive effort. They then compared the numbers with previous sampling done in 2004 to 2011.
“We want to make sure that there’s black bears around for all the different social values and cultural values and ecological values that they provide for Ontarians,” Northrup said of the generally elusive species, which avoids humans and lives in thick forests.
Figuring out how many bears the province has is one thing, but Mark Ryckman, a wildlife biologist and director of policy at the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, says a good starting point would be to actually figure out how many bears the province wants to have.
“Without that information, evidence of a population decline isn’t very useful because we don’t know what we want to do with that information,” he said.
Ryckman pointed out that population targets exist for moose, for example, developed by studying their importance to local culture and Indigenous traditions, hunting and recreation and their impact on other species in the ecosystem.
With population objectives, the government can take measures to reach those targets once after it surveys a species like the moose.
“Sometimes it’s about either increasing or reducing harvest. Sometimes it’s about tailoring the ratio of bull moose versus cow moose that are harvested,” Ryckman said, adding without that population objective, the “full picture” was not available yet for the black bears.
Ontario has two bear hunting seasons — the spring hunt, which has begun and runs until June in parts of the province, and the fall hunt, which is actually larger. The spring bear hunt was estimated to contribute $50 million per year to the tourism economy of northern Ontario, and the current value is probably more, Ryckman said.
But the spring hunt has been more controversial, because it’s a time when mother bears have young cubs. The mothers are vulnerable during this time because they are gathering food and caring for them, while the cubs are vulnerable because they are too young to survive if they lose their mother.
Concerns over the bears during this season led to the government cancelling the spring hunt in 1999. But advocacy from hunters and tourism groups, which argue that the hunt can be done sustainably while providing a boost to the northern Ontario economy, led to the province bringing it back in 2015.
Hunters are prohibited from killing female bears with cubs, but critics say despite the rules, it’s not easy to accurately identify a mother bear in the wild, especially earlier in the season when cubs are stashed in a tree while the female bear wanders through the forest alone, looking for food.
“From a distance, it’s almost impossible to tell if the bear is a female, a mother bear with cubs, or a young, small adult male,” said Mike McIntosh, who runs a bear sanctuary near Huntsville, Ont., that takes in orphaned bears separated from their mothers.
But Ryckman argues that hunters have options to accurately identify a mother. He says most hunters use bait sites and monitor them over time, either in person or through trail cameras.
Shane Moffatt, conservation campaigns and advocacy manager at Ontario Nature, said bringing back the spring hunt was “bad policy based on shaky science,” since the government does not have the full picture of its impacts on the bear population.
“I think we’re past the point in our society, given the global pressure on species worldwide, to be taking the attitude that significant reductions in numbers of wild species is acceptable,” Moffatt said.
“It’s really important that, when we see species are beginning to decline, we act in that moment and we not wait until the situation gets even worse.”
In a statement, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources said there were no changes planned to spring bear hunt this year, and that data indicate that “the black bear population is stable at the provincial level.”
“The ministry continues to monitor black bear populations and harvest levels and uses this information for ongoing review of the province’s policies for black bear management,” the ministry said.
Northrup said the bear population survey is going to be turned into a regular monitoring program, where his team will revisit the research sites and be able to track population changes over time. They will also use the data to get a better understanding of the movement patterns of bears, all to help inform the government’s bear management policies into the future.
