Bear baiting comes under fire

Ventura says it's 'assassination'; U.S. to take up the issue Associated Press

Last Updated: Dec. 25, 2002

Washington - Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura likens bear baiting to "assassination," but wildlife officials in the Upper Midwest say it's needed to control the bear population.

Next year, Congress will decide if the practice - which involves leaving anything from doughnuts to pizza out while hunters lie in wait - should be allowed on federal lands.

Because federal officials defer to states on wildlife management, bear baiting is allowed in federal parks in the nine states where it's legal - Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

That would change under legislation Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) plans to introduce next year, with the backing of the Humane Society of the United States.

"This is just wrong," Moran said. "It's comparable to shooting fish in a barrel. I just don't know what kind of sport that is. It's just a slaughter."

Ventura, who once declared, "Until you've hunted man, you haven't hunted yet," expressed even more contempt for bear baiting.

"Going out there and putting jelly doughnuts down and Yogi comes up and sits there and thinks he's found the mother lode five days in a row - and then you back-shoot him from a tree?" Ventura said.

"To me, that's not sport. I don't care what anybody says about that. That ain't sport - that's an assassination."

But Karen Noyce, a bear researcher with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said it would be difficult to hunt bear in the state's woody terrain without using bait.

"Bears are spread out around the forests," she said. "You don't normally see bears unless they're at a place where they are feeding."

Noyce said bear baiting - the predominant way bears are hunted in the states that allow it - has helped keep the bear population in check, at just over 20,000.

A ban on federal lands would have a significant effect on bear baiting. In Wisconsin, for example, the federal government is the second-largest landowner.

Bear baiting and hunting with dogs - a practice banned in Minnesota - has reduced the Wisconsin bear population to 11,000, from 15,000 four years ago. That's helped cut down on crop damage and other nuisance problems with bears, said Dave Evenson, deer and bear specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

"There are not a whole lot of other ways of harvesting bears," Evenson said. "They're a low-density animal, on a big wooded landscape."

Wayne Pacelle, a vice president and lobbyist with the Humane Society, discounted that argument.

"They have thick forests and lush vegetation in Washington and Oregon and other states that have long banned bear baiting," he said. "It's a silly excuse."

Washington state banned bear baiting and hunting with dogs in 1996, but the number of bears killed by hunters has actually increased since then - 1,439 last year from 844 in 1997. That's because the state lengthened the bear hunting season and reduced the price of hunting permits, said George Tsukamoto, a biologist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Most of the bears killed have been in the densely forested western part of the state, he said.

Three other states banned bear baiting in the past decade - Massachusetts in 1996, Oregon in 1994 and Colorado in 1992. Michigan voters rejected a proposed bear baiting ban in 1996.

Rick Posig, president of the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, said bear baiting isn't as easy as critics contend.

"You can sit on a bait for hours on end," he said. "The bears are smart. They know when you're there and when you're not there."

Posig also argued that baiting makes the bear population stronger, by providing enough food for the surviving bears to have more cubs in the spring.

The Humane Society makes the same point.

"Well-fed bears reproduce more," said Pacelle. "By putting tens of thousands of pounds of food in the woods, you contribute to population, which runs against the idea that bear baiting somehow meets some management imperative."

He also argued it was inconsistent for the U.S. Forest Service and federal agencies to warn people against feeding animals but allow hunters to put out food for bears.

"There is some truth to that," conceded Noyce, the Minnesota state bear researcher. "I won't say baiting doesn't contribute to bears habituating to human scent. I'm sure it does."

Last year, a House subcommittee defeated a proposed bear baiting ban, 38-25.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/State/dec02/105929.asp