REMINDER: It is MANDATORY to report on your hunting licence, regardless of success. The Department of Natural Resources relies on harvest reporting data for important management decisions, and so efforts to improve this reporting compliance level will be made over the coming hunting seasons.

Year	General Bear Harvesting Licences Sold	Senior Bear Harvesting Licences Sold	New Corrected Estimates (General)	New Corrected Estimates (Senior)
2014	3,808	5,339	419	139
2015	3,808	5,217	419	136
2016	3,726	5,665	410	147
2017	3,946	6,279	434	163
2018	3982	6685	438	174

How is bear harvest estimated?

In 2015, DNR staff aimed to correct historical black bear harvest numbers based on licence sales. These correction factors are based on follow up calls to hunters that did not submit their mandatory bear harvest report. The following correcting methods were used to estimate harvest based on the number of licences sold:

General licences:
To determine a “kill” estimate:
(General licences sold) x (0.11) = Estimated number of licence holders that hunted and killed a bear.
To determine a "no kill" estimate:
(General licences sold) x (0.47) = Estimated number of licence holders that hunted and did not kill.
To determine a "did not hunt" estimate:
(General licences sold) x (0.31) = Estimated licenses not used.

Senior licences:
To determine a “kill” estimate:
(Senior licences distributed) x (0.026) = Estimated number of licence holders that hunted and killed a bear.
To determine a "no kill" estimate:
(Senior licences distributed) x (0.31) = Estimated number of licence holders that hunted and did not kill.
To determine a "did not hunt" estimate:
(Senior licences distributed) x (0.61) = Estimated licenses not used.

Note: there are a proportion of reports that come back “incomplete”; therefore the totals do not equal 100%.

Reported Black Bear Harvest by County*

County	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Antigonish	9	23	4	19	16
Colchester	25	41	28	58	25
Cumberland	52	51	41	66	53
Guysborough	14	18	21	20	12
Halifax	38	35	36	39	28
Hants	11	20	7	23	16
Pictou	17	42	25	49	26
Cape Breton	3	1	0	1	2
Inverness	8	4	3	4	3
Richmond	0	1	0	0	0
Victoria	5	4	2	8	8
Annapolis	42	29	42	25	20
Digby	14	11	14	13	6
Kings	21	30	34	26	21
Lunenburg	21	15	21	13	11
Queens	27	22	14	15	13
Shelburne	14	5	8	8	8
Yarmouth	16	6	13	11	12
Total:	336	357	312	397	280

*These harvest numbers are only those that were reported. This table does not account for the estimation determined in the Harvest Table.

Part of Nova Scotia’s black bear management plan includes monitoring the age structure of the yearly bear harvest. Changes in age structure could indicate a change in the bear population that would need to be monitored and addressed.

Bear pre-molar teeth are submitted as part of a mandatory collection from hunters and trappers when successful in harvesting a bear.  The ages were determined by cementum tooth analysis performed by Matson’s Laboratory.

Black Bear Snaring Information: 2014-2017

	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Harvest Information
Licences sold/distributed	280	299	299	354	319
Did not hunt	68	122	70	72	85
Returned blank	30	28	38	73	16
Returned no kill	39	55	46	50	41
Returned with kill	54	92	63	94	65
Sex Ratio
Male	21	26	15	28	26
Female	32	51	43	58	29
Unknown	0	9	0	8	7
Effort Information
Number of snares	173	291	214	313	229
Number of snare days	2267	3534	3309	6434	3094
Number of snare nights	903	1553	1319	2895	1239

Please note all data for snaring combines senior and general license data.

REMINDER: It is MANDATORY to report on your hunting licence, regardless of success. The Department of Natural Resources relies on harvest reporting data for important management decisions, and so efforts to improve this reporting compliance level will be made over the coming hunting seasons.