Liz Montgomery is reporting for Porcupine Soup that New York hunters killed 1,346 black bears during the 2021 hunting seasons, the Department of Environmental Conservation has announced. Overall, hunting numbers declined from last year, but the Catskills dead bear count was the highest. In Greene County, 63 bruins were killed. Statewide, the largest bear reported to DEC was a 560-pound bear taken in the town of Hunter. Hunters killed an estimated 403 bears in the Northern Zone and 943 bears in the Southern Zone. Statewide there is generally an alternating pattern of high and low bear harvest from year to year, which is influenced by fluctuating patterns in cub production and food availability, the DEC says. In Greene County, bear death totals included: two in Ashland, 14 in Cairo, ten in Catskill, three in Durham, three in Greenville, one in Halcott, 15 in Hunter, two in Jewett, three in Lexington, one in New Baltimore, eight in Prattsville, and one in Windham. Read the full story at porcupinesoup [dot] com.