Louisiana black bear hunt lottery opens Thursday

If you want to participate in Louisiana’s first black bear hunt in 37 years, you’ll have your chance starting Thursday.

That’s when the lottery will open to all licensed hunters. It runs through September 25.

The state banned black bear hunting in 1988, Four years later, black bears were added to the endangered species list.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed black bears from the endangered list in 2016.

“This is a huge conservation success story, not only of the people of Louisiana, but also nationally to be able to get something off of the endangered list and back into a hunting season,” says Madison Sheahan, Louisiana Secretary of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Only ten permits will issued through this lottery, and they will consist of three types.

“There’s our Wildlife Management Area tags,” says Sheahan. “We have our private landowner tags to really thank those private landowners that have been able to help us through this conservation success story, as well as general public tags.”

The application fee is $50, which will go into the black bear management accounts.

“Over this process, we’ve restored almost 800,000 acres of land,” Sheahan says, “and a lot of this is due to the contributions of folks to our black bear account.”

Licensed hunters selected will need to go through a training course.

“On November 2nd or the 14th, you’ll have to go through the training,” Sheahan says, “and that’s in partnership with our department, and … Safari Club International has been helping us out on that.”

The hunt will be confined to Bear Management Area 4 in northeast Louisiana, which includes Tensas, Madison, East Carroll and West Carroll parishes.

It will run 16 days, December 7-22.

Click here for lottery applications.