SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) California currently has more black bears than any other state in the nation and their numbers continue to increase unabated statewide.

(b) With black bear populations far beyond the carrying capacity of their traditional habitats, bears are being forced into ranges they have never occupied before, including suburban and urban areas.

(c) Commensurate with the unabated increase in black bear numbers, incidences of encounters between bears and humans, and public safety concerns, have escalated statewide.

(d) California’s first confirmed death due to attack by a black bear took place in 2024.

(e) The Department of Fish and Wildlife has not updated the state’s Bear Management Plan (plan) since 1998.

(f) The current overpopulation of black bears in the state will be confirmed via an updated plan that the department is on schedule to finalize imminently.

(g) The final draft of the revised plan estimates the state’s black bear population at 60,000 to 80,000 bears, which is a two times higher than what the department previously estimated.

(h) Because bears are apex predators, they have no natural enemies except humans. They are not managed by “nature,” rather humans must manage them.

(i) Except for taking problem black bears with a depredation permit, there is no other way other than legal hunting to manage their numbers, ensure public safety, and keep bear populations in balance with the ecosystem and their prey.

(j) Black bears were traditionally hunted in California via the pursuit by dogs, which is by far the most effective method of take for harvesting bears.

(k) Senate Bill 1221 (Chapter 595 of the Statutes of 2012), legislation which was lobbied on emotions and void of science, was signed into law in 2012 and prohibited the use of dogs for hunting and the simple pursuit of bears beginning in 2013.

(l) Since the passage of SB 1221, annual bear harvest by hunters has been substantially reduced.

(m) Since bears have not been pursued by houndsmen with dogs for over a decade, black bears have now lost the fear of humans or dogs that historically have hazed them away from suburban or urban areas, resulting in escalating conflict between humans and bears and public safety concerns.

(n) California does not limit the number of bear tags they sell annually to hunters, with over 30,000 sold in 2024.

(o) California does limit the number of bears that can be annually harvested by hunters at 1,700.

(p) The annual harvest limit of 1,700 was set years ago when the state’s bear populations were much lower.

(q) Before SB 1221 placed a prohibition on using dogs as a method of take for harvesting bears, the annual harvest cap of 1,700 bears was reached nearly every year.

(r) Since pursuit by dogs was prohibited as a method of take for black bears in 2013 the annual harvest has typically been closer to 1,000 and never exceeded more than 1,441 bears.

(s) As of January 8, 2025, the department is only reporting 808 bears harvested by hunters in 2024.

(t) Before the passage of SB 1221, when pursuit by dogs was still an allowable method of take for bears and the 1,700 annual cap was regularly filled, the department recognized that more than 1,700 bears must be annually harvested to maintain black bear populations within the carrying capacity of their traditional habitats, and in balance with the ecosystem.

(u) Twice the department requested the Fish and Game Commission to increase the 1,700 annual harvest quota for black bears. Both times the commission rejected that request due to the emotional objection of animal-rights interests.

(v) The final draft of the updated plan notes that the maximum sustainable annual hunter harvest of black bears is near to 16 percent. Yet, hunters in the state have been harvesting less than 3 percent.

(w) In addition to escalating threats to human safety, another consequence of black bear populations being out of balance with the ecosystem is the impact that has on other predator species, including mountain lions, and their prey.

(x) The final draft of the plan states that research has demonstrated that black bears “frequently displace mountain lions from their kills, a behavior called kleptoparasitism.” The final draft of the plan states that studies have “found black bears at 77% of mountain lion kills, and black bears displaced mountain lions from them 72% of the time. Black bear kleptoparasitism caused mountain lions to increase their kill rates substantially to recoup energetic losses to black bears and mountain lion kill rates in this system were the highest reported for the species across their range.”

(y) The steady increase in the population of black bears in our state is directly contributing to the undesirable changes the state is seeing in mountain lion behavior, the upsurge in conflict between mountain lions and humans, and the substantial increase in mountain lion depredation of livestock in the County of El Dorado.

(z) The final draft of the plan also notes that the overpopulation of black bears is putting severe stress on California’s deer populations. The plan states that “high rates of predation on deer fawns and kleptoparasitism of mountain lion kills by black bears have likely contributed to a declining deer population in this area.”

(aa) Additional research performed about a decade ago suggested that up to 80 percent of deer fawns are killed in their first 30 days of life by black bears.

(ab) The inability of houndsmen to pursue bears with dogs for the past decade has substantially contributed to California’s perilously high black bear populations and dangerous changes in their behavior, resulting in an unacceptable increase in conflict between human and bears, human fatalities, crashing deer populations, and harmful impacts to mountain lions and other predators that compete for their prey.