BETHEL — In Maine’s general election ballot on Nov. 4, a citizen-initiated referendum seeks to outlaw bear hunting with bait, with dogs, and by trapping.

Known as Maine Question 1, the referendum asks: “Do you want to make it a crime to hunt bears with bait, traps or dogs, except to protect property, public safety or for research?”

The coalition backing the referendum is Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting, and they are supported in this effort by the Humane Society of the United States.

On Saturday at trapper and fur trader Neil Olson’s 38th annual New England Trappers Weekend in Bethel, large signs were just about everywhere urging the few thousand participants to defeat the referendum. Additionally, the Maine Trappers Association was holding a 50/50 raffle and auction with all proceeds going to fight the referendum.

Many trappers view the referendum as an attack on their right to hunt and on deeply steeped hunting traditions.

“It’s got nothing to do with bears,” Brian Cogill of Parsonsfield said. Cogill is president of the Maine Trappers Association. “We’re doing everything to fight them. They told us they’re going to come and take everything we love away and they’re starting with bears.”

He said that he believes “people are sick and tired of the Humane Society telling us how to manage our bears.

“The Humane Society doesn’t know anything about bears, but our biologists have been studying them for years,” Cogill said.

Ben Bruns of Buxton, who is the association’s membership director, said that if the referendum is approved it would affect an industry that brings in $60 million annually. “It’s going to kill a lot of businesses,” Bruns said.

Melvin and Linda Nunn of Groton, Vt., are members of the Vermont Trappers Association and they donated money on its behalf to the Maine association for its fight.

“I don’t think it should have ever been in the Legislature at all,” trapper Melvin Nunn said. “It should be left with the fish and game biologists. They know more about it than those (behind the bear referendum). It’s people who don’t understand game that shouldn’t be trying to manage it.”

Trapper David Bean of Rumford said he would vote against the referendum.

“It’s just going to upset the balance of things,” he said. “The biologists know what they’re doing. One thing that people don’t look at now is that this state used to be all wilderness and animals had the run of the place. Now, we live with them and we have to manage them or we’ll be overrun with them.”

Bean said people who support the referendum don’t understand how difficult it is to get a bear with bait, with dogs, by trapping, by stalking or by sitting in blinds or tree stands.

“They watch these half-hour TV shows and (the hunters) are always successful, but that isn’t true,” he said.

Butch Tripp of Gardiner and Linda Bridges of Kennebunkport are longtime trappers and members of the Maine Trappers Association. They were selling raffle tickets to support the Maine Guides’ Super Raffle, doing their own 50/50 raffle, a bear skinning-table raffle and an auction Saturday night. They were also handing out Vote No on 1 campaign signs and encouraging people to get to the polls.

“We’re doing well here this weekend,” Tripp said. “A lot of people are just coming up and handing us cash. They’re real supportive and everyone wants a No on 1 sign.”

One young man bought some raffle tickets and asked for a sign. Bridges gave him advice.

“People are pulling these signs up out of yards in the midcoast area, so to stop that, grease the sides of it with skunk lure,” Bridges said.

Skunk lure is a powerful skunk essence that is used by hunters to mask human scent, especially when hunting deer.

Vote No on 1 bumper stickers went out of stock quickly and Tripp had expected to give out 300 signs by midafternoon.

Bridges said the bear referendum should never have been started.

“But since it’s here, we will defeat it and I, personally, am doing everything I can to do that,” she said.

She said that as anticipated, they’re getting a strong response from trappers.

“Obviously, here at Olson’s, it’s a weekend of trappers gathering together, so it’s been pretty much preaching to the choir,” Bridges said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com