Maine's Controversial Bear Hunting Season Opens Amid Call for Reform

A three-month-long bear hunting season began Monday in Maine, bringing with it a wave of rekindled criticism against the state's liberal bear-hunting laws.

Advocates of bear hunting say it is the only method for keeping the state's bear population, which is the largest in the country, in check. There are an estimated 30,000 bears in the Maine wilderness, up 30 percent since 2004, according to The Associated Press.

A main point of contention for Maine's bear hunting critics is legal use of bait, traps and the practice of hounding, in which a pack of hunting dogs fitted with GPS collars are released into the woods to track and chase a bear into a tree. The hunting opponents say the use of traps and hounding is cruel and does not offer the bears a sporting chance.

The advocacy group Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting reports that Maine is the only state to allow statewide hounding, baiting and trapping of bears.

"Bear trapping is so unsporting, inhumane, and unnecessary that Maine is the only state left in the country that still allows it for sport," the group wrote on its website. "Trappers typically bait the bears with an unnatural diet of grease and pastries to attract them to a particular spot in the woods. There is absolutely no fair chase involved."

An effort is underway to curb the controversial hunting practices. A decade ago Maine voters faced a referendum on bear hunting laws, but the motions to ban trapping, baiting and hounding failed. Hunting reform groups hope to get a referendum on the 2014 election ballot, with the idea that Maine voters will have had a change of heart since they last voted on a hunting referendum in 2004.

"I believe we have an excellent chance of winning this time. The opposition's alarmist strategies and scare tactics that were prevalent in 2004 can be exposed this time around. People are much more aware of animal protection issues than they were 10 years ago," Robert Fisk, director of the Maine Friends of Animals, which led the 2004 effort, said to the Kennebec Journal.

Last year more than 10,000 hunters purchased bear-hunting permits in Maine, and 3,207 bears were killed, according to the AP.

David Trahan, director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, told the Kennebec Journal that he's against the reform of state bear hunting laws because he thinks it will usurp bear-management practices in place the he believes to be working.

Look at "what happened in New Jersey, where they didn't have a bear hunt for 30 years," he said. "The bears started walking into homes. New Jersey can become the test tube for what happens without a bear hunt."