LETTER: State dramatically, opaquely expands bear hunting in Vermont
June 24, 2026To the Community:
As the saying goes, trust is a fragile thing—hard to earn, easy to lose. For wildlife protection advocates, trust in the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s leadership has never really been earned—and keeps slipping further away. Here’s another example of why.
Earlier this year, the department began discussing bear “management” and the need to kill more bears. Notably, at the June 17 Fish & Wildlife Board meeting, the department itself acknowledged—as does the scientific literature—that killing more bears will not prevent future human-bear conflicts.
Black bears are typically managed according to social carrying capacity: How many bears people want on the landscape. This differs from how species like deer are managed, where biological carrying capacity drives decisions. Yet the department hasn’t surveyed Vermonters on this issue in years. In fact, in an email obtained through a public records request, the Department admitted it has no reliable carrying-capacity data. So the obvious question is: How is it justifying a month-long season extension and the issuance of additional bear tags?
What’s even more troubling is how dramatically—and opaquely—the department changed course.
In February, the department recommended extending the bear season by one week, through the end of November. Then in April, a hunter and former Fish & Wildlife Board chair petitioned to extend the season through mid-December, legalize bear-baiting, and issue a second bear tag. During my phone conversation with a senior staff member at the department, he outright dismissed the idea of a mid-December extension.
Then, in May, without presenting any new science or biological justification, the department reversed its February recommendation and aligned itself with the same hunter—and former Board chair—recommending to extend the season through mid-December.
They went from extending the season by a week to extending it by a full month without explanation.
The department also failed to disclose to the board that a mid-December season increases the likelihood that bear hounds will disturb denning bears—and that Vermont, unlike many other states, does not prohibit hunters from killing hibernating bears. Despite these omissions, the board adopted the recommendation and voted to extend the season.
At the board’s June 17 meeting, before the vote, this same hunter told both the board and the department that he had been “promised” a season extension and a second bear tag back in February. The department has been asked who made that promise. It has not responded. Promises about regulatory outcomes should never be made before the public rulemaking process has even begun.
This sense of entitlement is precisely what wildlife advocates have been raising alarms about for years. It erodes public confidence in the regulatory process and is one reason legislative reforms are likely coming.
When we submitted a public records request to understand why the department abandoned its February position, very few records were produced—raising serious questions about whether the decision was made behind closed doors, beyond public scrutiny. The department still hasn't explained why it reversed course, but it certainly seems like the reversal was to appease this hunter.
Wildlife management decisions should be transparent, evidence-based, and fully justified. This one was none of those things.
It shouldn’t be the responsibility of nonprofit watchdog organizations to hold a state agency accountable to the people it exists to serve.
Brenna Galdenzi, president
Stowe