They don’t grow them this big everywhere, but Pennsylvania has its share of giant bears.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission released its 2024 bear harvest totals recently.

Consider the Venango County bear Heath Bromley, of Titusville, got with a crossbow in October. It weighed in at 597 pounds — a tremendous bear any hunter would be happy to take.

And yet, it was just the 10th heaviest harvested by a Pennsylvania hunter in the 2024 seasons. The harvest’s nine bigger bears all topped 600 pounds, with three of them exceeding 700 pounds.

Scott Price, of Madison Township, Lackawanna County, got the largest of them all in Monroe County during the statewide regular bear season in November. It weighed 774 pounds.

“Pennsylvania is home to lots and lots of great bear-friendly habitat, areas with abundant and varied food sources and thick cover,” said Brandon Snavely, the Game Commission’s black bear biologist. “That allows us not only to support lots of bears, but plenty of very, very big ones, too.”

In all, hunters harvested 2,642 bears during the 2024 seasons, placing the 2024 harvest in the top 25 on record.

As in past years, the overall bear harvest was spread across the state. Fifty-six of 67 counties gave up at least one bear, as did 21 of 22 WMUs. Hunters got bears in all seasons, too. The traditional statewide firearms bear season contributed the most to the harvest, with 823 animals. The archery season added 756, the extended season 425, the muzzleloader and special firearms season 634 and there were four harvests in the early archery season.

That included a 681-pounder taken in rifle season in White Haven Borough, Luzerne County, by Stanley Boc, of Huntingdon Valley.

Among counties, Tioga produced the most, giving up 163 bears last season. It was followed in the top 10 by Clinton with 157, Lycoming with 148, Bradford with 133, Potter with 109, Luzerne with 95, Monroe with 93, Pike with 85, McKean with 78 and Sullivan with 75.

Final county harvests by region (with 2023 figures in parentheses) are:

Northeast — 805 (1,067): Pike, 85 (142); Bradford, 133 (138); Luzerne, 95 (135); Monroe, 93 (127); Wayne, 63 (124); Carbon, 62 (101); Sullivan, 75 (75); Susquehanna, 47 (67); Wyoming, 62 (62); Lackawanna, 31 (57); Columbia, 45 (27); Northumberland, 13 (10); and Montour, 1 (2).

Southeast — 167 (159): Schuylkill, 64 (65); Dauphin, 45 (42); Northampton, 28 (21); Berks, 18 (16); Lebanon, 9 (10); and Lehigh, 3 (5).

Last year, 201,280 hunters bought bear licenses for the 2024 seasons. It was the sixth-straight year bear license sales topped 200,000.