HARRISBURG, Pa. — As the Pennsylvania Game Commission talked about deer, cottontail rabbits and snowshoe hare, another animal threw its weight into the conversation.
Black bears harvested last year by hunters – a total of 2,920 in 58 of the state’s 67 counites – weighed in averaging 152 pounds for females and 198 for males, according to newly released data.
“No other Pennsylvania hunting season offers such a potentially big payoff as this one,” said Travis Lau, spokesman, state Game Commission. “Some were massive, too.”
The largest taken last year was 691 pounds in Pike County by Mitchell Johnson of Quakertown. Five other hunters got bears weighing more than 600 pounds, and each of the top 10 harvested bears weighed at least 576.
“That’s hardly surprising,” Lau said of the weight totals. “Pennsylvania generally produces bears weighing more than 600 pounds every year, and often at least one or two topping 700.”
Seven harvested since 1992 were more than 800 pounds, he said, with the biggest at 875 taken in 2010 in Pike County.