Hunting Season

Bear hunting, illegal in Maryland since 1953, will remain so at least for another two seasons. Sarah Taylor-Rogers, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources, announced yesterday that she has rejected a request from the state's hunters to open a limited season. The black bear population has been growing in Western Maryland, and with it the number of complaints from rural residents and farmers. The Maryland Sportsmen's Association this spring asked for a two-day hunt, with participants chosen by lottery, to reduce the population.

PROPOSALS to authorize a hunting season for black bears in Maryland are misguided, ignoring less drastic, practical solutions. The problem is that a growing number of bears are coming in contact with human activity in Western Maryland. Whether raiding garbage cans or farm crops, feeding on livestock or wandering around back yards of homes, the black bear is a decided nuisance (and danger) to humans there. As it becomes more used to human presence, the normally shy animal becomes less wary of encounters.

Black bears occasionally make the news when they mix it up with domestic animals or wander onto an interstate exchange at the edge of suburbia.But the better story is told less often -- the secretive forest dweller that had been virtually eliminated at the turn of the last century is making a comeback."

At 6: 30 a.m. yesterday, Gina Reed had the grill up to temperature at the Lisbon Country Corner sandwich shop and deer-checking station and sounded as if she wished she, too, were out in the woods and fields of western Howard County for the opening of firearms hunting season."

Maryland opens an experimental hunting season for green-winged or blue-winged teal in areas of the state east of I-95 tomorrow. The season, which has a four-duck daily limit, runs through Sept. 22, excluding Sunday hunting.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offered the special season to states in which 80 percent of the teal harvest comes from mid-continent nesting areas. The season dates are in addition to the normal duck seasons that open in October.Hunting for all other waterfowl is illegal during the September teal season, except for resident Canada geese.

The spring hunting season for bearded wild turkeys opens statewide on Saturday, and thanks to El Nino, state wildlife managers say conditions are excellent for a superior hunt.The spring season is set to begin after most hens have started nesting and bearded gobblers, having completed their primary roles in the breeding season, are still on the scout."It has been an early spring and I expect the gobbling activity will be early as well," said Steven L. Bittner, forest game project manager for the Department of Natural Resources.

As the rain began to fall yesterday on Maryland's Eastern Shore, a gaggle of Canada geese lunched on a cornfield's leftover grain. The geese outnumbered the hunters 800-to-none -- a federally mandated advantage that may save the birds from a population free fall.Three hunting seasons into a moratorium on shooting migratory Canada geese, the birds are showing signs of a resurgence, said Larry Hindman, a waterfowl project manager for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. With reports of a gosling baby boom last summer in northern Quebec, Hindman expects this winter's Maryland survey to show a significant population increase.

Last March, the Department of Natural Resources set hunting dates and bag limits for last season and next, saying that such advance planning would create consistency for game managers, hunters and landowners alike. Yet nothing is so constant as change.After a series of public meetings this winter better to define the state's deer management plan, DNR is considering making changes in deer, turkey, dove and resident Canada goose seasons.The special junior hunter deer season to be held in October could be opened for both antlered and antlerless deer statewide if DNR's proposal is accepted.

Joshua Sandt, director of the state's Wildlife and Heritage Division, said Friday that game managers will decide tomorrow whether the firearms hunting season for deer will be continued for two days in January.Unless yesterday turned out much better than expected, Sandt said, "There is a good likelihood the season will be continued, probably excluding the five western counties."In Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick and Carroll counties, the firearms season has been an effective tool in controlling the deer population.

Unfavorable weather conditions through the three-day early muzzleloader hunting season for deer last month resulted in a 16 percent decrease in hunter success statewide, according to preliminary figures from the Department of Natural Resources.The unofficial total was 3,851. Last year's early season produced a take of 4,589 deer.According to DNR, warm weather on the opening day and wind and rain on the last day of the season kept the number of hunters in the field lower than in other years.