$4 tagging fee hike closing big-game registration stations

NEWRY — A shortage of natural food in the woods is driving hungry bears to bait stations where hunters are waiting.

"Natural foods for bear are much less plentiful this year compared to recent years, resulting in a higher bait interest and harvest," state bear biologist Randy Cross said. "This appears to be true statewide this year." 

However, finding a registration station at which to tag the bear within the state-required 18-hour limit is getting tricky since legislators hiked tagging fees to $5 this year.

Some station owners upset with the new fee — of which they get $1 — have stopped providing the service, Cross said.

Bear season with bait is under way and goes through Saturday; the season for hunting with hounds ends Oct. 30 and the general bear-hunting season goes through Nov. 28. 

For many years, store owners charged hunters $1 to register animals, pocketing the money. The Legislature added $4 to be sent to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to help with funding woes, Cross said by e-mail on Tuesday.

"Unfortunately, no additional compensation was added to the cut that station owners got," Cross said. "This has bothered many, as now they have to account for that money at the end of filling out a book (of tags)."

He said he believes the Legislature will soon fix the situation, because biologists and wardens rely on work that tagging agents do to help determine future harvest rates.

"The transition has been awkward, to say the least, but we are working on it with our limited resources," Cross said. "Game wardens and regional biologists are trying to fill gaps, but some may not come 'til deer season or next year."

To provide sufficient big-game tagging opportunities, some new stations have opened. But the changeover will make it difficult to judge local harvest intensity based on how many bear a registration station tags.

In the past, tagging stations changed little from year to year, but recession woes are also affecting stations and hunting guides. Fewer people are booking hunts.

One station benefiting from tagging station closures and increased harvests is Doug Webster's Bear River Trading Post at the corner of Routes 2 and 26 in Newry.

That station had tagged 54 bears as of Tuesday, the largest weighing 400 pounds. More could have been tagged, but the station had to wait for a new book. Each book has 50 tags.

Hunters cannot keep an unregistered bear, deer, moose or wild turkey at home or any place of storage for more than 18 hours, unless they bag the big-game animal in Maine's unorganized territories. In that case, they can keep it unregistered for up to seven days or until they leave the woods.

One turned-away hunter drove from Gilead to the Rumford Fire Department tagging station, where bear numbers are unusually low this year at eight, mostly because hunters don't like the fee hike, said Lt. Sylvannus "Butch" Glover.

When Webster first opened his store four years ago, they tagged 55 bears, store clerk Amber Head said. Last year, with the West Bethel station open, they tagged about 30 bears.

Webster attributed this year's increase to the West Bethel station and others closing because of the fee structure change.

He said he was seeing more bear hunters and more bears in the area, especially in Grafton Township and Upton.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com