Hunters took 147 black bears in Oklahoma in 2026, setting a harvest record for the state’s bear hunting season that has been held since 2009.
This year’s harvest shattered the previous record-setting year in 2023, when 86 black bears were harvested.
Bear hunting success is consistently affected by the natural abundance or shortage of the fall mast crop. Matt Hensley, senior wildlife biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, said that was most likely the case this past season.
Archery hunters took 139 bears, while muzzleloader hunters bagged eight bears in the open hunting area that includes all or portions of 12 counties in southeastern Oklahoma that are south of Interstate 40 and east of U.S. 69.
ODWC employees physically checked-in 130 bears over 32 days, collecting data and samples for research. Choctaw Nation wildlife authorities handled bear check-in for tribal members, logging 17 of the total harvested.
The state’s bear harvest has consistently trended upward, bolstering Oklahoma’s reputation as a bear hunting destination.
The Oct. 24-Nov. 1, 2026, bear muzzleloader season was the first since the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission removed a 20-bear season quota. While the eight bears taken for this season did set a season record for muzzleloader harvests, the change didn’t produce a notable increase from harvest numbers in previous years. In both 2014 and 2018, hunters using muzzleloaders took seven bears.
For more statistics on the state’s 2026 black bear hunting season, refer to the graphics below.
Hensley praised the state’s bear hunters. “I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to our Oklahoma bear hunters. We appreciate the homework you do and the support you provide to our bear program.
“Every successful hunter brings their bear to a check station to be checked in by ODWC staff. Data collected from harvested bears provides critical insights into age structures, DNA profile and population dynamics, ensuring that Oklahoma’s bear population remains balanced and sustainable for generations to come.”
Black bears once ranged across North America, including the entire area of what is now Oklahoma, but by the early 1900s, sightings had become rare. Factors like land use changes, unregulated hunting and habitat fragmentation caused black bear numbers to eventually decline drastically.
Beginning about 1985, however, black bears began making a comeback in Oklahoma after the successful reintroduction of black bears in the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. That initial relocation of about 250 bears from northern Minnesota and Manitoba turned into thousands of bears in the mountains of Arkansas, which then expanded into southwestern Missouri and eastern Oklahoma.
Bears have become an important part of the state’s wildlife diversity. Their population is growing in eastern Oklahoma, and they are ranging farther west toward the Interstate 35 corridor. Black bears can also be found in the western Oklahoma Panhandle.
ODWC continues to study the state’s black bears in cooperation with wildlife researchers at Oklahoma State University. Projects funded in part with federal Wildlife Restoration Program grants have looked at the spatial ecology and expansion of bears in eastern Oklahoma and the status of the bear population in the western Panhandle. Another cooperative research project is expected to begin this month to examine the population of bears in eastern Oklahoma and associated human dimensions relating to those bears.
For more on black bear hunting, go to https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/resources/bear.
Learn what it means to be Bear Aware with ODWC Senior Wildlife Biologist Matt Hensley and then follow avid hunter Caleb Flies of Norman as he takes primitive hunting to an extraordinary level in pursuit of a black bear. Watch this Outdoor Oklahoma TV episode, and others, online at youtube.com/watch?v=8iXsN2pdv0k.
Get Local News!
