Bear Baiting (Maine) Letter to papersA LETTER TO MAINERS WHO VOTE

As a Virginian who has visited your great state on several occasions, I am moved to write you because you are being asked to eliminate bear baiting. Your response to this vote will have repercussions far beyond your borders and it may increase the conflicts between bears and people and eventually result in disruptions in the justly famous bear and other wildlife populations of Maine. I say this as a retired wildlife biologist and wildlife law enforcement officer. For over thirty years I worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and a state (Utah) Fish and Game Department. My last eight years were spent largely fighting those who are asking you to eliminate bear baiting.

You should resist the arguments to eliminate bear baiting for three very good reasons.

First, bear populations must be thinned and distributed annually to maintain the bear habitat, the bear population, and the wildlife that are impacted by bears. They must also be thinned in areas of human residences and activities such as beekeeping. The use of hunting seasons to achieve these ends costs the state nothing, generates funds for the state to manage bears and other wildlife, and generates jobs and revenue for rural communities and businesses from cafes and motels to taxidermists and outdoor shops and gun stores.

Second, bear baiting is the most CONSISTENT and EFFICIENT method of harvesting bears. Rain or snow, warm weather or cold, leaves on or down; no other method offers the ability to respect private property, locate bait stations where kills are desired, and finely manage (through quick reporting) the harvest by region or area. Dogs are never universally available and blundering into a bear is a hit or miss deal greatly impacted by snow, rain, foliage, and a host of other factors that vary widely and can therefore result in overkills and underkills (usually the latter.)

Third, and perhaps most important, bear baiting is the most HUMANE and SPECIFIC method of harvesting bears. In no other method can the hunter be completely relaxed (assuring a steady shot); look carefully at the bear and decide if it is old or young or what he wants to shoot; and, most important of all, ABLE TO PLACE A SHOT THAT CAN KILL INSTANTLY.

You are being asked to enact the animal rights agenda. If you swallow the nonsense about "fairness" you are biting on a red herring. The name of the game is managing the bears. By making it a "sport" and assuring the most CONSISTENT, EFFICIENT, and HUMANE method while generating management money and rural income you are preserving an American tradition and a healthy environment for all Mainers.

If you vote out bear baiting today, in a year or two it will be a ballot initiative to eliminate bear hunting, then moose hunting, then bird hunting, then fishing, etc. Take it from one who knows. Those last eight years I mentioned were spent saving trapping and the American fur industry from European Union bureaucrats bent on destroying them. Those bureaucrats were being bribed and lobbied by the same groups enacting this anti-hunting agenda today. The same lobbyists who got California to treat cougars like pagan gods are the same ones in the hallways of Brussels whispering to European bureaucrats and they are the same ones taking UN delegates to dinner to get them to stop hunting in Africa, management of marine species, and any commerce of wild plants or wildlife. They are the same groups who attend Animal Rights Conferences and similarly plan to eliminate your pets and any use of animals from circuses to rodeos.

Don't legitimize what they are doing. Many of us are looking to you for a common sense response to this pernicious agenda. Don't let us down and don't let down the generations of future Mainers who want to know the Maine you have known and loved.

Jim Beers
1 February 2004

Source http://www.allianceforamerica.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1504&sid=3a0feb30e407225b4c060470fed8c39f