Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.

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Bear hound hunters are beginning to wonder if the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is hearing what they say.

At the July 17 meeting of the DGIF, Charles Montgomery of Buchanan presented several proposals from the Virginia Bear Hunters Association, which claims 1,000 members. Montgomery, a bear hunter for 60 years, is the association’s vice president.

The DGIF board and staff listened cordially, then said, “Thank you,” and that was it. No follow-up that was visible.

Later, the association’s president, Warren Radford, of Radford, would tell me, “Sometimes we seem to get left out.”

At the August DGIF meeting, Montgomery was back, this time with reinforcements, including Radford and a half-dozen other members. Several addressed the board and presented four pages of recommendations along with a brochure that described the Virginia Bear Hunters Association as “The best friend that the black bear has in Virginia.”

Again, there was a cordial “Thank you,” then nothing.

Afterwards, in the hearing-room hallway, Radford and other members were talking to the media and anyone else who would listen.

The bear population has been growing, yet opportunity to hunt or chase bears has not, they said.

DGIF had promised them extra hunting/chase opportunities if they would rid their ranks of outlaws, they said. They had worked hard, and with success, toward that effort, and for good measure had introduced kids to the joys of hunting, participated in Boy Scout and Farm Bureau events, picked up trash and removed ice-damaged trees from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Yet they had received little in return. But that doesn’t mean they won’t keep it up.

“We just want to enjoy our sport,” said Radford. “We are not here because we had nowhere else to be today.”

Later, back in the board room, C.T. Hill, a board member from Midlothian, asked “who is going to follow up” when petitions are made to the DGIF? “We need to have a more formal process than we have.”

Hill implied that some of the requests of sportsmen appear to fall through the cracks never to be heard of again. Board members asked Carlton Courter, DGIF director, to look into the process which appears too often to fail sportsmen who have taken a day off from work or traveled a great distance to make their ideas known.

One board member said he had a difficult time understanding what the bear hunters wanted, and another member, Sherry Crumley of Buchanan, said board members should be notified when the bear association holds its meetings so they have the opportunity to attend.

Here are the requests made by the bear association:

>Allow the pursuit of bears 24 hours a day during the chase season. Hours now are one-half-hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset. The expanded hours would allow more people to enjoy the chase season and would reduce daylight conflicts with other forest users, the association said.

>Extend the chase season to include the entire month of August. The season now in counties along the Blue Ridge Mountains is Aug. 11-Sept. 29. In 2005, bear hunters thought they were going to be granted the month of August for training, but said DGIF pulled back from that proposal after the association worked hard to gain the extra time.

>Add the Southside area to the chase season where association members say bears have multiplied to the point of becoming a nuisance.

>Expand the bear hunting season to include the entire month of January and either the last week of October or the first week of November in areas where the bear population needs to be stabilized.

>Work toward a reciprocal agreement with adjoining states that would give bear hunters the right to retrieve their dogs when a chase takes them into another state.

> Reinstate the right to feed bears.