Last winter, after publishing photographic evidence of one group's successful week of bear hunting, the calls and e-mails started coming in.

"How could you?" asked one caller. "I was heartbroken."

The photo showed a huddle of Western Pennsylvania hunters proudly displaying about a half dozen bears that had succumbed to a week of smart, well-planned drives. Among the dead bruins was a black bear cub that appeared to be slightly larger than a big stuffed Teddy Bear.

The ethical debate over killing bears less than a year old isn't new. Some states outlaw the practice. A 1925 law banning the harvesting of bear cubs in Pennsylvania was rescinded in 1981 following a two-year overall ban on bear hunting.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, the bear population has skyrocketed since the killing of cubs was legalized.

In 1980, the Pennsylvania Game Commission estimated the state's black bear population at 3,000 to 5,000. Since then, although residential development has grown substantially, the bear population has quadrupled to an estimated 15,000 to 17,000, and biologists say it is rising still. In fact, the Game Commission's 10-year bear management plan (2006-1015) notes that "today bears are more abundant than at any other time since European settlement, and about four times more abundant than 25 years ago when the trend began."

"It's not just an expansion in the number of bears, but in their geographic range," said Mark A. Ternent, the Game commission biologist who prepared the plan.

While the harvesting of young bears in the state is not among the factors responsible for their spectacular population increase, Ternent said that from a biological perspective, killing them hasn't slowed the trend.

The regulation that prohibited killing cubs was changed because in the field, a large bear cub doesn't look much different than a small subadult.

"Prior to 1981, when cubs were illegal to harvest, a lot of hunters were shooting [what they thought were] 1-year-old animals, and when they got up to them they realized they'd shot a cub," he said. "Nine percent of the bear harvest was cubs killed illegally. Many [hunters] were standing in line at a bear check station when they found out, and they were fined and the bears were confiscated. Nine percent of the harvest resource was being wasted. It didn't seem fair to hunters."

In Pennsylvania, black bears begin breeding at an earlier age than almost anywhere else in North America -- at age 3-4, although some females as young as 2 have been known to reproduce. Cubs are born in litters of one to five during the first three weeks of January, and the first-year survival rate is estimated at 80 percent. By mid-November, the cubs are 11 months old and average about 80 pounds (some may weigh as much as 140 pounds) with a shoulder height of 15-20 inches.

Subadult 1-year-olds generally weigh 100-125 pounds and stand about 2-feet high at the shoulder.

"The way [biologists] tell a cub from a 1-year old is by the teeth," said Ternent. "The milk teeth are replaced, just like in human children, and the process is finished at age 1."

From a sporting aspect, the difference between shooting an adult bear or a cub is akin to shooting a 3-year old buck with a nice rack or a yearling doe. Older animals are generally more wily than youngsters and often require more hunting skill. And like hanging a nice rack on the wall, taking a 500-pound-plus bear earns more bragging rights.

But Ternent said that's only half the argument. Most bear hunting in Pennsylvania is done through organized drives in which mature bears, subadults and cubs are just trying to get out of the way, often equalizing the difficulty in getting off a shot.

And getting a shot at a bear isn't easy. More than 140,000 bear licenses were sold in Pennsylvania in 2008 with a success rate of only 3 percent.

"That means when bear season opens, 97 percent of hunters will not harvest a bear," said Ternent. "And very rarely do we see people harvesting more than one or two bears in a lifetime."

Realizing that getting a shot at a bear is rare, a hunter may take the cub when he or she has the chance.

The statewide two-day bear season runs Nov. 23-25 with a one-bear limit. Archery-only bear hunting is legal Nov. 18-19 in Wildlife Management Units 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F, 2G, 3A, 4A, 4B and 4D. Special seasons are set in WMUs 3B, 4E and 2G (Nov. 30-Dec. 5) and 4C, 4D, 4E, 5B and 5C (Dec. 2-5).

"[Shooting cubs] really doesn't impact the population," said Ternent, "but we encourage hunters to not shoot those very small bear cubs just because of the negative perception."

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