Northwest Wisconsin Leads Way in Resurgent Bear Hunt Season

The Northwest Wisconsin region had a particularly strong showing in the 2024 bear hunting season, leading to a bounce back overall harvest.

Coming into this fall’s bear hunting season, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials expressed concerns over the reduced number of licenses issued. Coming off a below-average hunting season in 2023 which saw fewer than 3,000 bears harvested across the state, the number of awarded licenses decreased slightly to 11,501 this year.

Despite the decrease in awarded licenses however, preliminary results show hunters harvested a total of 4,285 bears during the five week season from September 4th to October 8th. According to a press release, Department of Natural Resources officials credited higher hunter success rates for the good harvest.

Hunting zones A and D in the Northwest Wisconsin region put forth particularly strong harvest numbers. The two zones were the only ones with a harvest target of over 1,000 bears, and preliminary numbers show both zones exceeded those targets comfortably.

Zone D, which covers most of Barron, Polk, Washburn and Burnett counties, had a target harvest of 1,100. Preliminary numbers show 1,177 bears were harvested in the zone with a nearly 40% hunter success rate.

Zone A, which covers the rest of the Northwest Wisconsin region, had a target harvest of 1,075. Preliminary numbers show 1,237 bears were harvested in the zone with a hunter success rate of over 70%.

Combined, the Northwest Wisconsin region accounted for more than half of the bears harvested across the state. Department of Natural Resources officials say the overall hunter success rate was about 6% higher than the five year average.