Make no mistake about it, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s position on the bear referendum has little to do with science and black bear management, despite the claim in their recent, ethically questionable TV ad.

Annually, 80 percent of our bears are shot over a bait pile beside the road by nonresident trophy shooters who purchase an $88 hunting license and a special bear permit for $68.

During November, when more than 100,000 Mainers actually go hunting in the woods, DIF&W supports an existing statute that makes it illegal for them to hunt bear with bait.

Trapping only accounts for 2 percent of the bears killed, yet DIF&W bear biologist Vashon and others defend it as a necessary “tool” to manage bears.

The only science and management that I can see at DIF&W is job management and the mathematical science to ensure that there will always be money enough in the till to pay the “experts.”

Sad, but true, and that is why it is time to rid our state of its current unethical hunting and trapping methods of killing the most intelligent and magnificent of Maine’s animals, who teach and nurture their young for two years, as do mothers of little children.

And we are the only state in our nation that allows a handful of commercial, bear-baiting guides who are supported by their entrepreneurial partners to sell a public resource as though it were a cash crop.

Bill Randall, Winthrop

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