General Information
- Black Bear Facts
- Being Bear Wise: To keep bears wild, what YOU do really matters.
- Living with Black Bears in Virginia
- Avoiding Black Bear Encounters: Brochure (PDF)
- Avoiding Black Bear Encounters with Your Dog (PDF)
- Mange and Black Bears
Guides to Keep Bears Wild
- Build a Bear UnWelcome Mat – Electric and Regular Mat Instructions (PDF)
- Protect Your Hives – Electric Beehive Guard Instructions (PDF)
- Electrified Mobile Hives/Chicken House Instructions (PDF)
- Electric Fencing for Black Bears (PDF)
- Do-it-yourself instructions on how to make your trash container bear resistant (PDF)
- Watch the video of a bear at the Virginia Tech Black Bear Research Center test a modified container (video provided by VT BBRC)
- Watch the video of how to modify your trash container (filmed by Roanoke Valley Television)
Bear Management
Bear Hunting
- Bear Seasons & Bag Limits
- Tips for Bear Hunting: Plan Your Hunt, Know Your Capabilities, and Know your Shot
- For the Chef
- Harvest Summary for 2023–2024
- Bear Harvest Age Information (2023–2024 Bear Season Age Data Available)
Additional Bear Information
- Center for Wildlife Information: Be Bear Aware
- Get Bear Smart Society
- BearWise
BearWise.org is a regional program based in the southeastern U.S. that shares ways to prevent conflicts, provides resources to resolve problems, and encourages community initiatives to keep bears wild. - Virginia Wildlife: Virginia’s First Bear Smart Community (PDF)
- Recommended Reading: Living with Bears Handbook, by Linda Masterson. 2016.
- Virginia BearWise Community Cost-Share Program
Feeding Bears is Illegal in Virginia
Wildlife Managers don’t recommend feeding wildlife due to concerns surrounding disease transmission and habituation of wildlife to human foods. In Virginia, it is illegal to feed bears on both public and private lands. Bears attracted to residential areas or human dwellings due to feeding activities by people, whether deliberate or inadvertent (like bears eating from a birdfeeder or trash cans) can cause problems including the habituation of bears to people and serious property damage. Regretfully, bears that have lost their fear of people often have to be destroyed.