G&F: You want to maintain that unique trophy resource.

Taylor: Sure. It's been great for the local economy. People will tell you that there are motels down there, and restaurants, and they're there to accommodate hunters. It's a significant part of the economy in some parts of the state.

G&F: Let's switch to bears for a bit. West Virginia's hunters enjoyed a record bear harvest in 2007. Why?

Taylor: A lot of the same conditions that made for a successful deer harvest also made for a successful bear harvest. Mast conditions were good enough to keep bears from going to their dens early, but mast wasn't abundant enough to keep bears from moving. So, everybody -- archers, dog hunters, still-hunters -- had a shot at bears on the move.

G&F: Statewide, the bear population has been expanding for quite a while. The current statewide population estimate is 12,000. Are we approaching a point where the DNR will want to slow the population growth?

Taylor: I think we're looking at liberalizing some bear-hunting opportunities. Whether that means increasing the bag limit or instituting some special seasons, we plan to use the same approach with bears that we did with deer.

G&F: A step-wise approach?

Taylor: A step-wise approach that is flexible enough to reflect what's going on with the bear population. We know how to kill bears. In the 1970s, we knew that our early gun season killed a lot of females and kept the population down. When we went away from that, we saw gradual growth and then exponential growth. So, we know that we have a lot of options (regarding the timing of seasons) if we want to slow population growth or, if we need to, reduce the population.

G&F: What criteria will you base those decisions on?

Taylor: The strange thing about bears is that you don't manage them based on their biological carrying capacity; you manage them based on the sociological carrying capacity -- how many bears the public is willing to tolerate.

G&F: Which way do you think public opinion is riding right now?

Taylor: We've done some studies, and there are agricultural areas of the state where people think we have too many bears. There are a lot of other places where people think the number of bears is just right or they even want to increase the population. The big question is what's going to happen in the state's western counties. You have fairly dense human populations there, and probably some areas that could never be opened to hunting with dogs because the land is carved up into a lot of small tracts. One landowner might not mind having dogs running bears on his property, but the guy next door might not want that at all. Getting around the land ownership issue is going to be a challenge.

G&F: So you have a high bear reproductive rate with an unfavorable land ownership pattern. What does that mean as far as regulations are concerned? To get around those problems, might you have to institute a spring season, or possibly allow bear hunting over bait?