Originally Posted by MudderChuck

One reason to hunt over food is so you can pick your Bear. You can choose by age or gender.

Another reason is to reinforce the fear of man. The Bear that head for the deep woods when they get the slightest scent of man have little to worry about.

The main threats to apex predators is disease, the second is other apex predators. man usually gets the stupid ones. Keeping the numbers down limits the spread of disease. Limiting the numbers of apex predators is self preservation.

I personally find hunting over feeders to be distasteful and somewhat unfair. I spend a lot of time scouting my hunts, I usually have my Deer spotted months before season opens, sometimes years. Not everybody can afford to put the time and effort into hunting that I do.