So what would happen if we stopped hunting bears? Minnesota's DNR bear project leader, Dave Garshelis, said, "We'd have a lot more bears." Minnesota hunters take about 3,400 bruins each season, roughly 20 percent of the total population. Although residents living in the heart of bear country have learned to live with the animals and nuisance complaints aren't a major factor, Garshelis admitted that without hunting, problems would certainly rise.

"In terms of how humans live with bears now, it's probably better to hunt them than not. In regions with high numbers of bears and people, quite a few are hit by cars, and it doesn't really matter to the bear whether it's killed by a hunter or a car," he added.

Rural New Jersey residents are seeing the results of too many bears in too little space. According to the state's Fish & Game Council, nuisance complaints during a one-month period--October to November--increased 45 percent from 2005 to 2006. Bear season wasn't blocked completely in Ontario, but a cancellation of the spring bear hunt in 1999 resulted in a significant increase in nuisance complaints, as well. Quinney examined reports of bear incidents five years before the spring hunt ban and five years after.

"In those areas with high bear populations, complaints increased 500 percent on average," he said. "We also looked at nuisance complaints in Manitoba, which still has a spring season. There was no change in the number of problem bears, so it's pretty obvious that without hunting pressure, more bears result in many more problems."

Anywhere bears are a legal game animal, particularly in states with high bear populations and abundant hunting opportunities, entire economies depend on the money hunters spend. According to Quinney, the Ontario government found that between 1987 and 1998, the economic impact of spring bear hunting was more than $350 million. In 1996, bear hunters had an economic impact of $46 million, which generated an additional $4 million in local, provincial and federal taxes.

"Bear hunting doesn't have near the economic impact as deer hunting does in Minnesota, but in communities where it's popular, bear hunters certainly do contribute a large amount to local economies," said Garshelis.

If bear populations do increase, the animals become more dangerous to each other, as well. Quinney said bears become cannibalistic as densities increase, citing a study by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources that found that adult male bears prey heavily on cubs as population densities increase.

"One of the arguments against the spring bear hunt was that hunters were shooting sows with cubs, which left those cubs orphaned. The MNR estimated that out of an annual spring harvest of about 4,000 animals, only about twenty-seven cubs were left orphaned as a result of mistaken harvest by hunters. With the increase in population since the spring hunt ban, an estimated 2,500 cubs are dying from cannibalism or starvation," said Quinney. "Are we doing them a favor if we stop hunting them?"

The future of bear hunting remains strong, but Jeanneret says hunters have to understand the connection between bear hunting and all other forms of hunting.

"Our foes look for a chink in the armor of our hunting heritage and go to great lengths to exploit any weakness," he said. "When sportsmen work together, we win. There's nothing magical about it."