The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is extending the public comment period to Dec. 11 for its draft of the “Louisiana Oyster Management and Rehabilitation Strategic Plan.”

The ugly side of the outdoors in the Teche Area surfaced again the first week of November, according to news in a prepared statement released Monday by the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

For the second time this year a Louisiana black bear was found shot to death in lower St. Mary Parish, the state agency’s Enforcement Division reported from Baton Rouge. Agents are seeking tips and leads that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for the illegal killing of the bear.

The 350-pound adult male bear’s carcass was found Nov. 9 near Centerville after agents were informed about the body that Monday. The agents recovered the carcass and took it to Baton Rouge, where a necropsy revealed the bear was shot by a rifle a few days earlier, according to the LDWF.

A hefty reward total of $8,500 is being offered in an effort to locate the person(s) who shot the bear discovered along Log Bayou Road. The Humane Society of the United States is offering $5,000, the Acadiana Chapter of Safari Club International is chipping in $2,500 and the LDWF’s Operation Game Thief has increased the reward another $1,000.

Anyone with information about the black bear’s death is urged to call the Louisiana Operation Game Thief hotline at 1-800-442-2511 or use LDWF’s tip411 program. To use the tip411 program, residents can text LADWF and their tip to 847411 or download the “LADWF Tips” iPhone and Android app from the Apple App Store or Google Play free of charge.

The hotline and the tip411 program are monitored 24/7. Upon request, informants can remain anonymous.

Unfortunately, the Nov. 9 case led to the second reward LDWF has had to post for a poached bear in a nine-month period in this part of Acadiana. Cpl. Jake Darden, who lives on the Chitamacha Indian Reservation at Charenton, and Sgt. Scott Dupre of Charenton responded to a report May 17 about a dead black bear seen along Hunting Road near a tiny community in rural St. Mary Parish. Dupre, who was on duty that day, Darden and a federal wildlife biologist found the bear in a ditch.

They stored the carcass in a freezer at the old LDWF building in Iberia Parish. Two days later, Darden picked up the bear and hauled it in the bed of his pickup truck to LSU, where LDWF veterinarian Jim LaCore X-rayed the animal, then conducted a necropsy on the big bear, estimated at between 300 and 400 pounds.

Necropsy results revealed it was shot three times in the stomach and left to die a slow, agonizing death.

Darden, who was honored as LWAA’s Region 6 Agent of the Year in 2015 and marked his 10th anniversary as an agent in September, still is waiting for a tip, any clue that could help identify a suspect or suspects.

An LDWF spokesman said it is unknown at this time if the two bears shot to death in the parish are connected to the same shooter.

The Louisiana black bear was listed as threatened in 1992 under the Endangered Species Act.