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Should the state ban bear baiting, trapping, and hounding?
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These are inhumane practices that are difficult to justify. Attempts by IF&W and other supporters of these hunting methods to do so through arguments about managing the bear population and economic impact do not fall on deaf ears, however. There’s no doubt that bears are not the cuddly animals some would like to depict them as, and no one can argue that there are jobs to spare in Maine. But — and maybe we’re just being our standard tree-hugging selves — we hold out the optimistic hope that Maine has its fair share of talented hunters and guides and that bears can be adequately hunted and controlled through traditional methods — as they were in the three centuries before the baiting of bears became popular in the 1980s. Further, we don’t see why real out-of-state hunters couldn’t be persuaded with the right marketing campaign to come to Maine and hunt bears on a more equal footing. Do hunters really only join the hunt because they know they’ll be successful? We hope not.
