West Lebanon — Hunters in Vermont and New Hampshire took a total of 1,595 bears in 2016, a dramatic increase over the harvest from hunting season in recent years.

In Vermont, hunters took 697 black bears, a 34 percent increase over the 10-year average of 520 bears, according to statistics released on Tuesday by Vermont Fish and Wildlife.

New Hampshire officials last month reported a harvest of 898 bears, also 34 percent above the preceding five-year average of 668 bears taken annually in the Granite State.

That was a modern-day record for the state, surpassing the 812 bears taken in New Hampshire in 2012.

A vast majority of the bears in Vermont — 547 — were shot by hunters in the early half of the two-part, 81-day hunting season, which bear biologists attributed to a poor berry crop.

“The berry crop was not all that good, so the bears were in areas where the hunters found them pretty vulnerable, which was apple trees and corn fields especially,” said Forrest Hammond, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife black bear project leader.

Hammond, who is based in Springfield, Vt., said another 154 bears were hit and killed on Vermont highways, a number that had never before exceeded 100.

“It showed it was not a particularly good food year, and the bears had to travel more,” Hammond said.

Vermont’s overall harvest by hunters of 697 was the third-highest in modern times, notably the 730 bears taken in 2004.

In New Hampshire, the 898 bears taken during hunting season were the result of several factors, “including a strong bear population that has recently experienced slight growth in select regions, a continued shift by hunters toward using methods that yield higher success rates, concentrated fall food sources (acorns) and extended hunting opportunities in select regions in 2016,” according to a summary from the New Hampshire Fish & Game Department.

“The fact that the majority (64 percent) of the statewide harvest came from the White Mountains and Central regions dovetailed well with current bear population management goals,” Andrew Timmins, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department’s bear biologist, said in the summary.

Some 293 bears were taken in the New Hampshire’s Central Region wildlife management units, which includes the Upper Valley north of Interstate 89.

Vermont’s early season, which required hunters to have a special bear tag, ran from Sept. 1 through Nov. 11. The late bear season ran from Nov. 12 through Nov. 20. All told, 21 of the bears in Vermont weighed more than 300 pounds and several were over 400 pounds.

Hammond said Vermont officials believe the bear population is within the range of 4,500 to 6,000 bears, and that harvest numbers can vary depending on weather, food availability, and whether bears are in dens early.

But he said his department does continue to get an increasing number of calls from the public about interactions with bears.

“We feel that we’ve got a healthy population of bears. We believe it’s in the range of what our population objective is, and the biggest concern for us actually is the increasing number of bear-human conflicts,” Hammond said. “The number of calls we are receiving from the public, requesting help from bears, that they are in their backyards and causing problems, that continues to climb.”

Wildlife officials in both states routinely advise residents to take down birdfeeders between April 1 and Dec.1, to clean barbecue grills and to secure trash containers and dumpsters.

News staff writer John P. Gregg can be reached at 603-727-3217 or jgregg@vnews.com.