Maine has a large and healthy black bear population. Eclipsed only by our November deer hunt, the early fall hunt for black bears has become a major contributor to the state’s rural economy. Guided bear hunts in early September by nonresident hunters bagging their bears at baited sites comprise the largest proportion of the annual bear kill.

Each year, hunters take about 10 percent of Maine’s estimated bear population, which is in excess of 22,000. More bear are bagged in Aroostook County than in any other county, and about 70 percent of the statewide bear tagged are taken by nonresident hunters who spend about a week in Maine paying guides, sporting camps and buying gas and groceries.

This fall’s bear hunt officially began on Aug. 25. For about a month before that, guides and outfitters made preparations. Once areas of bear activity were located, guides set up tree stands and selected bait sites. Guides and outfitters must pay landowners for a given number of these site permits.For the rest of the month, these sites are “baited” with something “bear edible.” Old donuts gathered up from bakeries and fast food outlets have become a popular bear bait. A bear guide I know in Western Maine “sweetens” his bait site perimeters by placing nearby scented cotton balls laced with a popular liqueur! The idea, or course, is to keep the bruin interested in hopes that it will revisit the bait site when legal hunting begins.

Bear hunting over bait has been and continues to be a source of considerable controversy nationwide. A statewide referendum in Massachusetts a few years ago outlawed bear baiting in that state, and it has been a public issue in some other states.

Now the Humane Society of the United States has targeted Maine for a similar anti-hunting initiative. A year from this fall, if the petition initiative is successful, which it is likely to be, Maine voters will be asked to approve a referendum that will make bear baiting in Maine a crime!

On the face of it, shooting a bear over a baited site does sound easy. Some hunters, most of whom have never bear hunted, argue that hunting over bear bait is contrary to the rules of fair chase. Truth be known, taking a bear over a bait site is not as simple as you might think.

Certainly, veteran bear guides who really know their stuff, and whose sports are careful shooters with cool heads, do boast high success rates.

But things don’t always work out. For three years now, I have hunted the black bear over my own baited sites. No bear meat yet.

Two years ago, squirrelly wind conditions spoiled my chances when a nice bear coming to the bait caught my scent in the nick of time. My hunting partner also blew his chance at a bear near a bait site. Shifting position in his tree stand to get the rifle up, his bear bolted from the bait sight when my partner’s new leather boots squeaked.

The year before, the bears were anti-social: they just never came to dinner. Three times they never came to dinner, even though at least three different bears had dined at my baited and rebaited sites for most of the month of August. Last year, I passed up a sow with two cubs, but all was not lost. Watching the cubs freak out over the jelly-filled pastries as the sow cuffed them aside for her own snack was about as entertaining for me as the woods ever gets.

Whatever one’s view of bear hunting may be, the irrefutable fact remains that it is as much a part of Maine’s rural culture and heritage as lighthouses and lobstering.

If it were not for the state’s ability to manage the state bear population, our bear numbers would exceed a socially tolerable level. Wildlife biologist Randy Cross- a bear hunter himself – explains that bear hunting over bait, which is about the only practical way to hunt bear, is an effective wildlife management tool used by the biologists to control the bear population in Maine.

In neighboring Massachusetts, where trapping and bear baiting have been outlawed, nuisance bears have become a growing problem, not only in rural areas of the state, but in suburbs as well.

Then there are the jobs and money that bear hunting brings to a hard-pressed rural Maine.

Maine’s Economy: The 1988 survey of bear hunters estimated that bear hunting generated $6.4 million, including $3.4 million of new money for the State’s economy provided by nonresident hunters.

Guides and Outfitters: Using the percentage of nonresident hunters that use a guide as a basis and multiplying by an average price of $1,000 for a guided hunt, the direct fiscal impact to the guiding industry is $4,564,440. This figure does not include any measure of other impacts such as retail sales or taxidermy. This impact is delivered in the more rural areas of the state primarily the northern, eastern and western mountain regions.

Department Revenue: Although overall participation in hunting in Maine is declining slightly, sales of bear permits are rising, from 12,000 permits in 1990 to 15,214 in 2002. Maine residents purchased over half of the permits last year (resident 7,852, non-resident 7,362). The fiscal impact of the early bear season on the Fish and Wildlife Department is also significant because of the number of permits sold.

In the next 12 months, as the anti-hunting community brings its dog and pony show to Maine in an attempt to ban bear baiting, we can hope that residents of our state will consider the economic and resource management benefits of Maine’s annual bear hunt before voting to make bear hunting a crime.

The author 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 [email protected].