BAXTER STATE PARK, Maine — Baxter State Park rangers usually help find lost people, but they’re not above helping locate lost hunting dogs, even when there are five of them, park Director Jensen Bissell said Tuesday.
Guided partly by telephone calls from their owner, the rangers helped return five lost bear-hunting dogs to their master Tuesday after they got separated from him during a hunt near park land, Bissell said.
“Every year at this time we have a bear hunter or two whose dogs go” astray, Bissell said. “We assist those folks as much as we can.”
In this particular case, it was probably a park record to have five dogs lost, but bear hunting does encourage free-roaming, Bissell said.
“Once the dogs are loose, they are loose. If the bear gets off the scent or the dog loses the scent, they can be miles away in no time at all,” Bissell said.
Often the lost dogs fall in with hikers or park personnel as they search for their owners or for food. Hunting is allowed on about 25 percent of park land, according to the park rules listed at baxterstateparkauthority.com. Dogs get returned to their owners once they are turned in to the park authorities.
Bears and bear hunters have had an active year. Sightings of bears have climbed dramatically. Between Jan. 1 and July 3, the Maine Warden Service received 542 bear-related complaints, compared with 292 in the same period of 2010 and 252 in 2011, Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife officials have said. Bear sightings have been reported in many places, including Presque Isle and many towns in New Hampshire.
The owner of the five dogs — whose name was not available — had radio transceivers on their collars and was able to track the canines with them, Bissell said. The owner telephoned the dogs’ approximate location to the rangers. The last lost dog was located near Roaring Brook early Tuesday afternoon, Bissell said.
The search itself wasn’t much trouble, Bissell said.
“The only impact it has, typically,” Bissell said, “is that somebody gives up their lunch.”
Bear hunting is an absolutely primitive ‘sport’. It’s not all bad to see the bears win from time to time.
Hey different strokes for different folks.
I vote to arm the bears….as we have the right to bear arms….
Killing for fun is disgusting and idiotic.
Hunting bears with dogs is cruel, and killing bears that come to eat bait the “guides” have set out – killing for fun and profit – is just plain ignorant.
If someone needs food, they can either catch a fish or go kill a deet or moose because they are true prey animals.
Bears are not primarily killed for food, but for trophies that someone from out of state can take home and make into a rug.
How can killing a bear that comes to eat the food that’s been set out for them be called “sport?” Ir’s just killing for fun, and it’s sick.
Disgusting! The guy should learn to control his dogs and loosing 5 dogs on bears? What’s up with that? If a person has to get rescued they often have to pay and I think this hunter should pay for the time of state employees, not us.
So you are allowed to hunt bear in Baxter with free roaming dogs but not have dogs on a leash when hiking?
I thought Baxter was pretty clear that he did not want any dogs in the park.
The hunt took place NEAR park land, if you read the complete article.
Ahh… good point – I missed that detail.
To be honest with the article pointing out that 25% of the park is open to hunting and the rangers talking about routinely helping find dogs that it gave the impression that this form of hunting is allowed. I think the BDN should have clarified that hunting with dogs is not actually allowed in the park as that appears to be the case.
Governor Baxter allowed in his mandates, some hunting in the Northern Part of the Park I believe.