MONTPELIER — Bear hunting season starts in September and the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department reminds hunters about the bear hunting regulations.
Vermont has two bear hunting seasons. The early season, which requires a special bear tag, starts Sept. 1 and continues through Nov. 13 with one exception. Nonresident hunters using dogs cannot start bear hunting until Sept. 15. The late bear season begins Nov. 14 and continues through Nov. 22. A hunter may only take one bear per year.
In addition to a hunting license, a bear hunter using a bow or crossbow must have a prior or current bow license or a certificate proving completion of a bow hunter education course.
The hunter must field dress the bear before taking it to a reporting station. It is also legal to skin the bear and cut it up in order to carry it out of the woods. Although the bear must be reported within 48 hours, Fish & Wildlife urges doing so quickly to cool the meat. The

hunter must also collect and submit a pre-molar tooth from the bear at the time the bear is reported or within 30 days. The tooth provides important data on age &size of the bear population.
Upon the request of a game warden, a person harvesting a bear is required to return to the kill site with a game warden.
“Bears will be feeding along power lines and in forest openings and old fields where berries and apples can be found as well as in forested beech and oak stands,” said Vermont’s bear biologist Forrest Hammond. “They also are likely to be feeding on standing corn.”
“Fifty years ago Vermont had less than 1,500 bears, and they were found mostly in the mountains and northeastern quarter of the state,” he said.
Hammond recommends that hunters refrain from shooting a bear with cubs and bears observed in groups as they are usually made up of sows with cubs.