Bear poaching in Balsam
The tradition of hunting bears with hounds is as old as the first arrival here of the Scots-Irish, and Balsam, located near the confluence of the Plott Balsam mountains and the Richland Balsams, is adjacent some of the broadest, most rugged expanses of forestland in the region.
It is traditional bear hunting territory.
The hunting of black bear is carefully regulated, though, and as bear populations revive, and as private development concerns continue to encroach on areas that hunters have long considered “theirs”, some hunters have begun to test those regulations.
The NC Wildlife Resources Commission is searching for those responsible for bear poaching recently in the Balsam area, where a bear carcass, minus its head and paws, was recently found dumped alongside a road.
It wasn’t the first such incident.
“To just come and make a trophy out of it leave the rest to rot that’s … wrong isn’t even the word to describe it,” Balsam resident Sonny Bryson told Asheville’s WLOS television.
Tags: bear, hunting, mountains, North Carolina, wildlife, WLOS
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