Maine bear hunt methods are inhumane
To the editor:
Growing up in Aroostook County, I have been around guns and hunting my entire life, and I most certainly support the rights of fair chase hunters. However, there are three practices that are not considered fair chase hunting by any
wild stretch of the imagination. These practices involve trapping, baiting, and hounding of bears.
These outdated and unsporting practices are cruel. Maine is the only state which allows bear trapping, a torturous and horrific practice. Using packs of dogs to chase bears up trees where they are shot and often fall to the ground before dying is appalling. These injured bears have been known to attack and kill dogs involved in the practice — thus painful injuries and torturous death occur for both the bears and often the dogs involved.
A somewhat less violent practice, the use of junk food which is fed to bears at specifically set up sites well prior to the hunting season beginning, is referred to as bear baiting. The thousands of pounds of junk food put into the woods of Maine every year has far-reaching negative consequences — not the least of which is an increasing bear population from the additional food available to the bears. During the past 10 years, Maine’s black bear population has increased in size by approximately 7,000 bears due to the practice of bear baiting.
Among the other unintended consequences of bear baiting, is the spread of disease among bears and other animals who come to the feeding sites to eat. There are negative health consequences to the animals from the junk foods they are consuming as well. Once bears are trained where the food can be found, every fall, the “guides” guarantee their paying “hunters” they will get a bear. They put the “hunters” in tree stands over the bait sites and instruct them to wait for the bear to show up to eat, and kill it. This practice is about as far from fair chase hunting as the human imagination can stretch!
A newly launched ballot initiative, the Maine Fair Bear Hunting Act, is a great opportunity for Mainers to stand up and end these three cruel wildlife practices once and for all. Here in Aroostook County, we value our wildlife, just as much as we value the right to practice fair chase hunting (something these three practices are about as far from being as it is possible to get!). We also value our right to have a say in what happens with our wildlife, and to stop letting a few individuals who make money off these cruel unsportsmanlike practices continue to control what happens with Maine’s bears.
I urge you to get involved and support this new ballot initiative. More information is available at http://fairbearhunt.com/ Let’s give Maine’s bears a “sporting” chance!
Dena L. Winslow
Presque Isle
