Oakleaf,

I was responding to this post:

"Something like 120,000 white-tailed deer are harvested each year in each STATE. I'd be surprised if black bears hunt deer - are you sure of that? They're not much bigger than deer ..."


In fact, black bears do prey on deer and a significant amount of fawns are killed each year by bears.

As for this comment:

"3500 bears vs 390,000 deer taken by human hunters in Pennsylvania last year? Sorry, I'm not seeing how that bear population is enough to balance the deer population without human predation."

I never said that the bear population was enough to balance the deer population and in fact I agree that hunting is necessary to keep the deer numbers down to a sustainable level.