The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has thrown down the gantlet. This well-heeled national anti-hunting organization, which has led successful campaigns to ban bear hunting in a number of other states, has formally targeted Maine.

Calling itself the Coalition For Fair Bear Hunting, HSUS will petition Mainers to put the bear-baiting question to voters in the fall of 2004.

Unquestionably, this initiative poses the most serious threat that we have ever known to Maine’s hunting heritage. Hunting bear over baits is bear hunting, period. Most of Maine’s annual bear harvest is attributable to the hunting of bear at bait sites. As state bear biologist Randy Cross said, “The end of bear baiting in Maine will be the end of bear management.”

Each fall in Maine, bear hunters hunting over bait sites take about 10 percent of Maine’s 24,000 bears. The hunt not only generates jobs and $12 million a year to the state’s rural economy, it is a wildlife management tool providing funds for bear studies and a mechanism for maintaining, monoitoring and regulating stable black bear populations.

Although there have been a number of unsuccessful in-state attempts to ban the hunting of bears over baits, this promises to be the pivotal fight. HSUS has lots of experience, lots of money, and a track record of successes. As state representative Matt Dunlap, co-chairman of the Legislative Fish and Wildlife Committee, points out, the battle has yet to begin, and already HSUS has seized the moral high ground by calling itself the Coalition For Fair Bear Hunting. As political strategists know, public referendums can be won or lost by the wording of a referendum question. So at the outset, it can be argued that our anti-hunting opposition already has the advantage in this clever game of definitions. As Dunlap wrote, “Don’t allow the term ‘fairness’ to be taken away from you or used against you, just as we can’t allow the term ‘wildlife management’ to be replaced with ‘unnecessary cruelty.’ “

Equally worrisome are these statistics: 1) Public opinion polls indicate that among the urban/suburban populations in Maine, there is a majority apparently opposed to the hunting of bears over baits. 2) Among those who hunt, there is a significant number “who don’t agree with bear baiting.”

Make no mistake. This bear baiting issue is a house of cards. Once the hunting community allows itself to become divided by our opposition forces, and after HSUS has a taste of victory in Maine – one of the nation’s most hunting oriented states – it and other national anti-hunting organizations will carry their campaign against other hunting activities. The tactical term used by political strategists and social planners is “incrementalism.” Victory by gradualism.

Guardians of Maine’s hunting heritage have their work cut out for them. In the months ahead, the challenge will be to organize and prepare to wage an important political battle. There will have to be a major effort to raise campaign money and make sure that the voting public has all the facts. Individuals, who treasure their right to hunt, state fish and game clubs and other outdoor associations and organizations must rally and work together.

To this end, the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine (SAM) will “lead and organize a campaign to defend Maine’s bear hunt in full partnership with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Maine Professional Guides Association (MPGA). A broad coalition of sportsmen’s groups and other associations will be organized to participate in the campaign.”

According to SAM’s executive director George Smith, SAM will be working with a professional polling firm this summer, using funds provided by MPGA. Sampling Maine public opinion of course is a necessary first step. Additional planning activities are underway.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal.He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is paul@sportingjournal.com.

Copy the Story Link