DOVER, New Hampshire — After Maine voters rejected a measure to ban bear baiting, hounding and trapping on Tuesday, attention is turning to New Hampshire.
Will the Granite State be targeted next by animal rights groups wanting to ban “unethical” bear hunting practices?
Although two national groups that supported Maine’s “yes” effort — People for Ethical Treatment of Animals and The Humane Society of the United States — say there are no immediate plans, both made it clear the fight isn’t over.
Bear baiting remains legal in Maine as 53 percent of voters turned down Question 1. The same percentage of voters turned down a similar measure in 2004.
Maine, New Hampshire and 10 other states allow bear baiting. New Hampshire also allows the pursuit of bears with dogs, as does Maine.
Only Maine allows all three methods the groups find offensive — baiting, hounding and trapping.
New Hampshire probably wouldn’t see the same scenario as in Maine, where citizen initiatives can come up for a general vote. In New Hampshire, a law to change hunting laws would need to go through the state Legislature and then be signed by the governor. It would not need to be approved by voters.
The state still has been targeted repeatedly by those who want to change things.
Four times in the past 25 years a ban on bear baiting has been introduced in the New Hampshire Legislature, including last year. Only once has the measure not been indefinitely postponed in committee.
In 1991, a bill to prohibit bear baiting passed in the House, but was tabled in the Senate.
New Hampshire’s process is the reason bear hunting guide Jason Parent of Northfield isn’t too worried.
“Legislators understand what it takes to control the bear population, whereas (the general public) tend to vote with their hearts,” said Parent, of the New Hampshire Guide Service.
Those legislators rely on experts such as Andrew Timmins, New Hampshire’s bear project leader.
Timmins said bear hunting is important in order to keep bear populations at a reasonable level.
In Maine, the bear population has grown to an estimated 30,000, an increase of 30 percent in 10 years. The New Hampshire bear population is about 5,700, and has increased 2 percent per year since 2000, according to Timmins.
Bait — typically sugary human foods such as doughnuts — is by far the most common method of bear hunting in Maine and accounts for about four-fifths of the state’s annual kill.
New Hampshire uses a different approach, according to Timmins.
“Our approach in New Hampshire is to allocate equal opportunity in hunting groups — bait, hound and still hunters,” he said. “We try to not to have one method become the vast majority of the way our bears are taken.”
New Hampshire licenses only 35 bear hunting guides each season, Timmins added, which restricts the amount of commercial activity tied to bear hunting.
Despite the increase in New Hampshire’s bruin population over the past 14 years, the number of bear and human conflicts hasn’t risen measurably, said Timmins.
“We have about 638 bear conflicts a year on average,” he said. “That can fluctuate pretty dramatically depending on food abundance. A high (for encounters) is 1,000. A low is 400.”
The best way to keep that number lower is to not feed bears and to restrict their access to food by not leaving bird feeders outside and using bearproof containers for garbage.
“You can avoid bears pretty easily if you’re willing to change your behavior and reduce food attractives in your yard,” said Timmins, adding that the intentional feeding of bears continues to be an issue. It is a violation of New Hampshire law to feed bears.
Unlike New Hampshire, Maine has a growing problem with nuisance bears. Encounters over the past decade have risen 25 percent in the state to about 500 per year.
Groups such as PETA and The Humane Society blame baiting for the increase in nuisance encounters and the growth of the bear population.
“The data is pretty clear,” said Lindsay Hamrick, The Humane Society of the United States’ New Hampshire director. “Baiting increases reproduction and their numbers when compared to states that don’t use baiting,”
Spokeswomen for The Humane Society and PETA said there are no immediate plans for seeking a ban on bear baiting in New Hampshire, but the issue is a priority.
“I think we’ll continue seeing caring people around the country trying to ban these excessively cruel methods of hunting, especially since the vast majority of people in the U.S. don’t hunt and don’t support hunting,” said Ashley Byrne, campaign specialist for PETA, reached in New York City.
The laws should be left to the legislators, not out-of-state special interest groups, said Rep. Janice Gardner, D-Dover.
“There are a lot of people in Maine and New Hampshire who hunt to feed their families for the winter,” said Gardner. “I don’t think someone who lives in a very large house in Alexandria, Va., has a right to tell people here how to live.”
Keeping a manageable bear population benefits both bears and people, said Timmins.
“First, I think a hunted bear population tends to be more wary of people. Second, if bear numbers become too high (and there are more nuisance encounters), public acceptance toward bears decreases.”
Associated Press Writer Patrick Whittle contributed to this report.
Distributed by MCT Information Services