Petition on suggested rule changes to help in the over population of bears in Wayne county. Will be submitted to the nine DNR district commissioner in Kentucky.

Because our weather is so condusive for bear population we are seeing anywhere from 1-4 cubs per sow every two years. This is allowing a possible doubling of the bear population every two years. The bears have become a nuisance to agriculture crops as well as in our observation diminishing the deer population drastically. We are getting less deer on trail cameras and have found deer that bears have eaten. We feel as if measures aren’t put in place to help keep down the population of bears we will only see a worsening of these issues as well as other issues arising as bears begin to compete for food sources.

We suggest the following changes;

1. We propose to bring the first dog running season in after bow season rather than before and leave it in for 2 weeks consecutive weeks. this would allow for the bear to be less disturbed for a more successful archery season. This would also increase the success rate as there are more archery hunters than dog hunters.

2. We propose allowing bears to be shot over deer grain sites this would increase the license sales as anyone that is deer hunting and knew they have bear coming in could legally take a bear while deer hunting. It would also relieve the guilt of those that know they have bear coming to a deer sight to feel as if they could continue to bait the deer legally and legally kill a bear on their property (if you call Frankfort they will tell you if there is one bait pile on 10,000 acres you can’t hunt bear legallly)

3. We propose to continue muzzleloader with gun bear and allow shooting over deer grain sites as well.

4. We propose to increase the length of the archery bear season by starting it earlier. Picket county Tennessee that is just adjacent to Wayne county have a month long season one bear per hunter that starts in September and runs into October.

5 It may take zoning out in a different zone the problem counties in order to not hurt the population in other counties

We believe these proposal's can resolve some of the bear problems we are having in our county.

Respectfully submitted and signed by the following hunters and residence of Wayne county Kentucky