I am a federal environmental…

I am a federal environmental scientist. I am well aware of all of the aspects of implementing the spring bear hunt again. I am 100% against it. Bears are left without their mothers - cubs need their mothers until ~16 months of age- meaning killing a mother in the spring ultimately will also be a death sentence for her cubs. Hunters kill females as it is difficult to tell the sex of a bear from afar, and the mother and cubs are not always close together. Male bears only emerge ~2 weeks before females - so a spring hunt means both sexes are available to hunters. Nuisance bears are often not the ones taken in the spring hunt, and this does not solve that problem. Nuisance bears are created by the public- better education and enforcement will help to mitigate that issue. Please do not reinstate the spring bear hunt.