If you feed bears because you\u2019re trying to photograph them, you\u2019re likely to get busted. But feeding bears in 12 states and national forests in ten of those states is fine if you\u2019re only trying to kill them.<\/p>\n
Shooting bears over bait is legal in Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma and New Jersey.<\/p>\n
As I write (mid-August), outfitters are festooning the woods with bags and buckets full of such garbage as stale donuts, old candy, bacon fat and rotten meat, thereby teaching adult bears and their cubs that it\u2019s safe, in fact advantageous, to hang around humans. During hunting season, the conditioned bruins will be executed at point-blank range by newly arrived, seated shooters.<\/p>\n
The practice is anathema to wildlife advocates. This, for example, from Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action: \u201cPlacing garbage piles in our national forests to ambush bears is not hunting. It\u2019s an unsporting and reckless practice that puts wildlife and people at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hunters \u2014 me, for instance \u2014 are equally repulsed, maybe more so. Pacelle has it right that bear baiting is not hunting. It\u2019s assassination. It gives fair-chase hunters and modern wildlife management a bad name.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow sporting is it to shoot a bear with its head in a bucket of jelly donuts?\u201d inquires fair-chase bear hunter Tom Beck, who ran Colorado\u2019s black bear program and was outspoken in supporting a successful ballot measure to halt bear baiting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat aggravates me most,\u201d Beck told me, \u201cis that wildlife professionals accept the claim that bears can\u2019t be hunted without bait. I don\u2019t believe anyone who says you can\u2019t hunt bears in the fall when they\u2019re on berries or nuts. You can predict where they\u2019re going to be, and if you\u2019re a woodsman, all you have to do is scout those places. After we banned baiting in Colorado, it took only two years for our hunters to get to the point where they were killing more bears than they were before.\u201d<\/p>\n
University of Montana bear biologist Dr. Charles Jonkel (1930-2016) condemned baiting as \u201cunethical\u201d and \u201cunfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBaiting,\u201d wrote Jonkel, \u201cpulls bears from their normal range and may pull bears to sites where they are vulnerable to attack by other bears, other species, parasites, and diseases. Michigan, for example, now has a terrible livestock TB infection, which probably came from the bear- and deer-baiting stations\u2026 Baiting causes bears and other species, from insects to shrews, to congregate, creating unnatural food chains, interactions, fights, and predation. Baiting changes each bear\u2019s relationship with other bears and with other species.\u201d<\/p>\n
When bears key in on human food, they cause trouble and wind up getting blown away by farmers, ranchers, game wardens and USDA\u2019s Wildlife Services. And bears that lose their fear of humans are a public menace.<\/p>\n
\u201cA fed bear is a dead bear.\u201d That\u2019s the shibboleth of wildlife managers, including managers in the states and national forests that allow and promote bear baiting. Never condition bears to human food, they warn, even as they let outfitters do precisely that.<\/p>\n
For example, the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire allows bear baiting while simultaneously issuing this counsel and regulation: \u201cDon\u2019t invite bears into your site by leaving food out. Keep food, garbage, coolers, pet food, canned or bottled beverages, and other bear attractants in a hard-sided vehicle\u2026 Feeding bears, intentional or unintentional [sic], is prohibited!\u201d<\/p>\n
On July 16, Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Michigan, introduced the Don\u2019t Feed the Bears Act to prohibit bear baiting on federal public lands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe practice of bear baiting creates danger for both people and animals, contradicting what federal agencies tell the public: \u2018Do not feed bears,\u2019\u201d Thanedar declared. \u201cThis bill is about strengthening public safety, animal welfare, and responsible wildlife management.\u201d<\/p>\n
This one is not a close call. Bear baiting is a disgrace. It must end.<\/p>\n