PGC

[JK Reed]

I know this is a fly fishing site, but I just have to vent. We live in the barrens of SWPA where there are no native/wild trout, with that being said we bought a cabin over in the Laurel Highlands area so we could fish and also hunt. Love the small mountain streams up here, but another thing we don’t have back at home is black bears. So came up late yesterday to go out for a long weekend and maybe possibly see a bear in the muzzleloader few days. I touched base with a friend who lives here full time on 50+ acres up the road from us near the resort. Apparently the game commission came through here on I believe Tuesday and pushed out all the hollows and trapped what he said was 7 or 8 bears just to relocate them to the more populated areas around Dunbar. Needless to say I’m fuming. I’ve been trying to pattern this one gigundo bear that’s been hanging out just occasionally around the cabin, thinking 700 or more range conservatively. Now it’s gone. So besides investing hundreds of thousands for the cabin (about 6 years ago now) and paying taxes plus our bear tags, there’s almost no reason to go out now. I’m just so FM I can taste it! Again sorry for venting but the wife is tired of hearing my rampage.

 

[greywolf]

I have never heard of the Game Commission pushing out hollows and I do not know how that would have anything to with trapping bears. The PGC definitely does use live traps to capture nuisance bears that someone has complained about. So if any bears were actually trapped and relocated someone in the area must have filed a complaint.

 

[Tigereye]

Yeah, can you picture a directive to the limited PGC WCOs and any of the maintenance/grounds folks...." hey you guys gotta drive those thar hills and hollers so we can trap us some bears"

Doesnt pass the sniff test, especially before the hunting seasons where the will be thinned out with little to no cost or effort. Also how are you going to trap "driven" bears. It would be like hearding cats.

That said, they may have placed a culvert trap or 2 to catch problem bears in populated areas.

Tigereye's rule number 1. Never underestimate the lazyness of the employee. With all due respect to the workers out there that is a double edge sword. Employees will find the easiest way to do something as an act of self interest.

 

[dc410]

Yeah, I’m dubious.

 

[ROVERT]

Any chance your "friend" is also hunting the "gigundo bear"? That's about the only way this story makes sense.

 

[poopdeck]

Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell the hunters to go to where the bears are. I’m not buying the story.

 

[riverwhy]

Why would they relocate them near more populated areas? Little of this makes sense to me.

 

[TimMurphy]

Pictures or it isn't true, especially with 7 or 8 bears allegedly removed. It sounds more like a story spawned on Mahogany Ridge, kind of like all them mountain lions seen by all those pap's and Uncles's.

If it is true someone has photo proof.

Try better next time!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[JK Reed]

Thanks for the comments. Doesn’t make much sense to me either. I can only go off of what my friend told me, he was quite upset they went through his property. And no he no longer hunts due to an injury.

 

[dc410]

I wonder who drew the short straw and had to net the 700 lb bear as it was driven out of the hollow??

 

[lycoflyfisher]

With the recent state supreme court ruling PGC staff did not go on private property to drive bear off without landowner permission.

 

[Swattie87]

With the recent state supreme court ruling PGC staff did not go on private property to drive bear off without landowner permission.

Bingo.

I had assumed throughout the thread we were discussing public land. Even then, I was in the “BS” camp too. The additional fact revealed of this being private land, makes the story as told very difficult to believe.

IF that actually happened (and there is objective evidence of it), and your friend/neighbor posts their property, and they’re that upset by it, they should consider seeking the advice of an attorney well versed in trespass matters in PA.

Edit: OP - I’d go out and hunt as if you never heard it.

 

[jifigz]

Sorry, but I don't think this happened. This story has almost a 0% believability factor. Plus, why would problematic bears be moved to a more highly populated areas?

You're not driving an area to catch 7 or 8 bears. Could you bait live traps to catch bears, yes, but..... Plus, they cannot legally enter private land to drive the hills, or did this all happen on public land? Either way, I don't believe it.

But ... There aren't bears in SW PA where you live? Man, that's hard for me to believe, too.

 

[Swattie87]

Sorry, but I don't think this happened. This story has almost a 0% believability factor. Plus, why would problematic bears be moved to a more highly populated areas?

You're not driving an area to catch 7 or 8 bears. Could you bait live traps to catch bears, yes, but..... Plus, they cannot legally enter private land to drive the hills, or did this all happen on public land? Either way, I don't believe it.

But ... There aren't bears in SW PA where you live? Man, that's hard for me to believe, too.

Away from ANF to the north, or the ridges to the east, and south well into WV, yeah. There’s no appreciable population of bears in the SW corner of the state. Not saying there are zero, but practically, so little (if any) that it is zero of a thought. Tons of deer, tons of coyotes, no bears. Grew up in Washington Co., folks still there, no bears.

Edit: (There are definitely bears in the Laurel Highlands area where the OP’s cabin is. Didn’t mean to imply I was saying that. That area is in the ridges to the east corollary.)

 

[PennKev]

Bingo.

I had assumed throughout the thread we were discussing public land. Even then, I was in the “BS” camp too. The additional fact revealed of this being private land, makes the story as told very difficult to believe.

IF that actually happened (and there is objective evidence of it), and your friend/neighbor posts their property, and they’re that upset by it, they should consider seeking the advice of an attorney well versed in trespass matters in PA.

Edit: OP - I’d go out and hunt as if you never heard it.

Double bingo.

Given the recent legal developments, if this happened on his land, he would most likely have consented to it.

File this between mountain lions and coyote conspiracies.

No offense to the OP, but I have some pretty good friends who say some pretty crazy sh!t and have neverending supplies of unbelievable stories.