ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - With the black bear population growing and more bears straying into civilized areas, the Missouri Department of Conservation wants a bear hunting season.
"We want to avoid the human conflict with bears," said Conservation Department Bear Trapper Tom Meister.
The department has been gathering public comment on the proposal at hearings held this summer in Springfield, Des Plaines and Kirkwood.
So far, Meister says the response has been positive.
At Tuesday night's hearing at the Powder Valley Conservation Center in Kirkwood, no protestors showed up, although the department had set aside a space for them to demonstrate.
A crowd of more than 350 showed up, filling out surveys that have yet to be processed.
Among those at the meeting--Amanda Good, Missouri State Director of the Humane Society of the United States.
Good's group opposes a bear hunt, saying it's an "inhumane, trophy hunt" that would not reduce the likelihood of human-bear conflict.
"When people do hunt bears, they're not hunting the ones that are causing the trouble," Good said, "They're out in the woods hunting the ones staying in their natural habitat where they're supposed to be."
Good also questions the claim by the Conservation department that there are more than five hundred bears in the state, noting that just last year the department estimated there were only 350.
The decision on whether to have a bear hunt would be made by the six member Conservation Department Commission, comprised of three Republicans and three Democrats.
Meister says the commission meets next in August and again in November, but right now there is no draft proposal on when a bear hunt would be instituted in Missouri and how it would be structured.
In other states, he says, the hunt opens on a set day and ends after a specific number of bears have been killed statewide.
"We're still gathering input," Meister said.
Good says her group is also studying the issue, and hoping to promote the approach that educating the public is the way to reduce human-bear problems.
"I think that bears are native species to the state of Missouri. We almost made them extinct. They're just now coming back, and we need to let that happen," Good said.