Pennsylvania Game News - March 2019 - 15

excited than I was knowing a bear was
taken on their property," Mike said,
humbly. "It wouldn't have been possible
without all of their help."

Last Day Bear
While bears as big as that taken by
Nutter surely aren't young adults that just
moved into the area, Ternent says the presence of female bears really is what tips off
a resident population, because males can
stray over large areas.
Interestingly, the first road-killed bear
documented in York County in June 2001
also was a female.
But given the bear had been trapped
in Huntingdon County and relocated to
Fulton County three weeks earlier, its
appearance in York County itself is considered unusual, Ternent said.
A 2½-year-old female bear - more
likely to have been a resident - was struck
and killed by a vehicle in York County in
June 2009.
And the fourth and final bear shot in
York County in 2018 also was a female.
For Kerry Gingerich, 59, of Red Lion,
having an opportunity at a bear on the
property he hunts in Newberry Township,
wasn't a complete surprise.
Those who hunt there had seen bears
over the previous two years, and he and
his son Eli found bear tracks in the snow
while setting up a tree stand there Nov. 24.
But on Saturday, Dec. 8 - the last day
of the firearms deer season - he was more
focused on filling his buck tag than his
bear tag, which remained unfilled after
he missed his usual trip to Clinton County
because of work.
Kerry, Eli and two others were spread
out in tree stands early that morning
on the farm consisting of dense woods,
small fields and food plots. As planned,
the landowner and a friend began a short
MARCH 2019

drive toward them at daybreak, through
patches of thick cover.
When the two drivers reached Kerry,
he climbed down to join them on the push
toward other standers.
Kerry was flanking at the bottom of a
hill when he spotted movement.
It wasn't brown, but black, and saw it
was a bear.
Knowing the other hunters had their
bear licenses, too, he immediately yelled
out, "Bear, bear!" It ran uphill toward one
of the drivers. Just as quick, though, it cut
back down in front of Kerry, then stopped
in an opening.
He touched off a shot from his Remington Model 7600 .270 pump-action rifle
and the 150-grain bullet struck the bear
behind the shoulder, dropping it.
It was only a short, 20-yard drag to a
logging road, where a tractor could get to
the 239-pound sow and bring it out.
Kerry contacted the Game Commission Southcentral Region Office to report
the harvest, and York County Game
Warden Justin Ritter came to check it.
By that time, word of the bear harvest
already was starting to get out, and other
hunters in the area were showing up to
see it.
Ritter said word of bears in York
County, in general, seems to have spread
quickly, and that he checked a lot of deer
hunters who said they'd purchased their
bear license for the chance to use it in York
County in WMU 5B's extended season.
Kerry said he'll continue to carry a
bear license while hunting deer prior to
Christmas in York County, and the production supervisor and part-time pastor
said he feels blessed to be among the first
to harvest one.
"It's hard to believe I did it," he said,
"but now I hope someone else experiences
the thrill I did."
15
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