New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton announced last week that hunters harvested an estimated 1,759 black bears during the 2025-26 hunting seasons.
According to DEC’s tracking of the annual bear harvest, which began in 1955, the 2025 harvest was second only to the 2003 season, and Southern Zone estimates set a new harvest record.
“The recovery and growth of New York’s bear population is testament to DEC’s vigilant wildlife management efforts,” Lefton said in a press release. “New York’s big game management plans help maintain populations at levels that are acceptable for local communities and provide sustainable hunting opportunities.”
Statewide, hunters harvested about 4% more bears than the 2024 season, and 18% above the 10-year average.
The Southern Zone take included an estimated 1,202 bears, including the 10 heaviest bears recorded for the year.
The Northern Zone harvest estimate of 557 bears was slightly lower than 2024, but still above the 10-year average.
The record-setting bear season in the Southern Zone is the culmination of a long-term pattern DEC documented in New York’s bear populations. In the 1950s, bears occupied only the most remote and mountainous regions of New York, such as the Adirondack, Catskill and Allegheny mountains. Over the past 70 years, bears gradually expanded their range in the state, and DEC began opening new areas for bear hunting.
Bears now occupy most areas of the state, except Long Island and New York City, and all areas of the state are open to bear hunting, except Long Island and areas closed to big game hunting. The expansion of bear range was particularly notable in the Southern Zone.
The Southern Zone bear harvest exceeded the Northern Zone for the first time in 1998 and accounted for most of New York’s bear harvest for the past 20 years.
While bear populations and hunting opportunities increased in the Southern Zone, the Northern Zone remains a traditional destination for many New York bear hunters. Northern Zone bears typically grow slower in the wilderness ecosystems of the Adirondacks but tend to survive to older ages than their Southern Zone counterparts.
All but one of the oldest bears on DEC record were taken in the Northern Zone.
Notable Numbers from the 2025 Bear Season:
— 74: The number of Wildlife Management Units, out of 88 open to bear hunting, with reported 2025 bear harvests.
— 562 pounds: The dressed weight of the heaviest 2025 reported bear, harvested in the town of Olive, New York, WMU 3C.
— 668: The number of harvested bears from which DEC received pre-molar teeth to determine the bear’s age in 2025.
— 26 years: The age of the oldest bear harvested in 2024, the most recent year for which age data was available. The bear was harvested in the Town Mooers, WMU 5A.
— 21: Bears harvested per 100 square miles in WMU 3C, the highest harvest density of any WMU for the 2025 seasons.
Black bear harvest data is gathered from two main sources: harvest reports required of all successful bear hunters and the physical examination of bears by DEC staff, cooperating taxidermists and meat processors. Harvest estimates are made by cross-referencing these two data sources and determining the rate at which hunters report their bear harvests in each zone.
In fall 2026, DEC will send a commemorative 2025 Black Bear Management Cooperator Patch and a letter confirming each bear’s age to all hunters who reported their bear harvest and submitted a tooth for age analysis.
DEC’s 2025 Bear Harvest Summary report provides tables, figures and maps detailing the bear harvest around the state. View it at tinyurl.com/nfkzunnd.
Past harvest summaries are also available at tinyurl.com/343h27x9.