Fayette hunter bags monster black bear
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A gigantic black bear killed in Fayette County during last year's hunting season is a new Pennsylvania record and ties as the largest ever legally killed anywhere in the world.
The 733-pound male was taken Nov. 22 in Dunbar Township by Andrew Seaman, 40, of Dunbar. State Game Commission officials believe the animal was at least 15 years old — an age reached by fewer than 1 percent of Pennsylvania black bears.
"Over the past 25 years, only 63 15-year-old or older male bears have been examined at check stations during the hunting seasons," said Mark Ternent, the agency's bear biologist. "Equally interesting is that Seaman's bear outweighs most 15-year-old male bears, which typically weigh between 400 and 600 pounds."
Seaman's bear was not the heaviest bear ever taken in Pennsylvania, where hunters have killed several bears with estimated live weights exceeding 800 pounds. The heaviest bear in Pennsylvania history was an 864-pound male taken in 2003 in Dingman Township, Pike County.
However, official bear records are based not on weight but the size of the animal's skull, which experts say is a more accurate measure of how one bear stacks up against another.
"While a bear's weight may fluctuate from one year to the next based on availability of foods and time of year, the size of its skull is a much more consistent means of determining a bear's true size," said Carl Graybill Jr., director of the commission's Bureau of Information and Education and a certified measurer for the Boone and Crockett Club, which maintains North American big-game records.
The skull from Seaman's bear was officially measured last month at the commission's Southwest Region Office in Ligonier after the mandatory 60-day drying period. The skull score is determined by adding total length and width together.
Seaman's bear received a skull score of 23 and three-sixteenths inches. That beat the previous state record held by Brian Coxe of Weatherly, Carbon County, who in 2003 took a 739-pound male in Weatherly Township that received a skull score of 22 and 14-sixteenths inches.
Seaman's bear also tied a California bear as the largest black bear ever legally taken by a hunter anywhere in the world. Before that record becomes official, however, the bear's score must be corroborated by a panel of Boone and Crockett Club judges during the organization's next awards program in 2007.
Only two black bears in the world are known to have higher scores than Seaman's. One is a skull that was found in Utah and received a score of 23 and 10-sixteenths inches. The other is from a Pennsylvania bear that was illegally killed in 1987 in Lycoming County. Its skull, which is on display in the lobby of the commission's Harrisburg headquarters, scored 23 and seven-sixteenths inches.
Seaman has been hunting more than 25 years but this was his first ever bear.
"I noticed this big black bear loping through the thicket and coming my way at about 25 yards," Seaman said. "I knew immediately that I wouldn't have a very big window of opportunity.
"I raised the rifle and shot, but the bear seemed unfazed. It kept moving, angling along the ridge away from me. I didn't know it then, but I had missed with the first shot. I discovered later that it had hit a tree. I continued to follow the bear with the rifle and aimed for the shoulders. It dropped to the ground as I squeezed the trigger on the second shot."
Seaman said it wasn't until he got his first good look at it that he realized the magnitude of his trophy.
"When I tried to pick up the bear's head, I realized just how big it was," he said. "I thought it might weigh 300 or 400 pounds, maybe even 500. Then I thought maybe I was getting a little carried away."
Seaman's bear probably eluded many hunters over the years, given how old it was and the fact that local hunters were apparently unaware of its presence.
The commission captured the bear in October 1997 while handling a cornfield damage complaint in Wharton Township, south of Dunbar. It was tagged and relocated to State Game Lands 111 in Somerset County and, at some point, apparently returned to Fayette County.
When relocated, the bear weighed 605 pounds and was estimated to be 7 years old.
