Voters last Tuesday rejected an effort by animal rights groups to ban the recreational trapping, hounding and baiting of bears in Maine. The margin of victory for the No on 1 camp, though, was smaller than polls predicted and not much different from a vote on essentially the same measure 10 years ago.
The slim margin highlights continued concern over bear hunting practices, which can either be addressed by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife or by voters when groups like the Humane Society of the United States put this question on the ballot again.
IF&W has the perfect vehicle for this consideration in its once-every-15 years review of its big game management plan. This review is slated to begin next year. The process includes numerous public hearings. In addition, the fact that more than 276,000 Mainers cast ballots against baiting, hounding and trapping should factor heavily into the department’s planning work.
This year, 54 percent of voters said no on Question 1. In 2004, 53 percent rejected outlawing the three bear hunting practices. Then — and now — many people, both hunters and nonhunters, voiced concerns specifically about hounding and trapping bears.
IF&W and its biologists have a mandate to manage the state’s wildlife. And during the campaign, biologists said that the three means seeking to be banned were essential to fulfilling this mission. Trapping and hounding, however, account for a small percentage of the bears harvested each year. In 2013, 2,845 bears were killed during the bear hunting season. According to IF&W numbers, 105 were caught in traps; 479 were hunted using hounds. Eighty-one bears were taken by deer hunters and 131 were killed using unreported methods. That leaves 2,048 bears killed using bait last year, making it the clearly dominant bear hunting method.
So, baiting might be essential to Maine’s bear management. Hounding and trapping, not so much. This, coupled with the fact that many Maine people — including some hunters — find bear trapping and hounding objectionable, should prompt IF&W to take a hard look at ending them.
“Trapping bears and hunting them with hounds are practices that are not supported by a majority of Mainers,” George Smith, former executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, wrote Thursday in his BDN blog. “If the ballot question had been limited to those two practices, we would have lost. Even many Maine hunters would not have supported us if the referendum had been limited to hounding and trapping.”
“Please understand that I am not saying there is anything wrong with these practices — only that they make us vulnerable,” Smith added.
Sportsmen and IF&W were offered such a compromise in the Legislature. Lawmakers rejected it, setting up this year’s referendum fight.
This fight, by the way, had a financial cost to IF&W, which is supported largely by fees on sportsmen, but also the state’s general fund. IF&W personnel, in uniform and during working hours, toured the state calling for a “no” vote. The department also hired companies to produce videos and graphics against the referendum. Despite its campaign advocacy work, the department did not register as a ballot question committee, so the public does not know how much the department spent fending off Question 1.
David Trahan, SAM’s executive director, says the Question 1 campaign has fired up sportsmen. The group had registered 43 new members in the previous 24 hours, he said Friday afternoon.
SAM plans to use that energy to push for more pro-hunting legislation next year. Just as out-of-state groups should not set Maine policy through referendum questions, sportsmen should not see last week’s vote as a ringing endorsement of all three bear hunting methods.