Feel sadness for the black bear. Why? Well, soon it will be time for the hunting season to begin on the bears of Maine. Out in the forest and fields, this majestic, beautiful, gentle creatures will be confined to suffer in a trap while others will be baited to an area with food scraps so some pitiful “sportsman” can steal its life away with a bullet.

And if that doesn’t seem cruel enough for a bear, others will be chased mile after mile by trained dogs. These bears, if they aren’t attacked by the dogs, will seek solitude in a tree (an instinctual place to hide) only to have its safehaven be the hunter’s version of “shooting fish in a barrel.” How pathetic and sickening.

You have to ask why and how someone can do such a cruel act. Why would someone want to see a bear (or any other animal), that’s living and breathing, caring for it’s young, walking in peace and beauty on this land, die all in the name of “sport”? How can one live with themselves, carrying the guilt of being responsible for ending an animal’s life? Do they not see the beauty in watching an animal live, but instead enjoy knowing that the life they just took, that the last few moments of this animals life were filled with fear, pain and agony? Are their lives that empty, do they feel that insecure about their own personalities, that they need to feel important so they end a defenseless animal’s life?

I feel sad for someone to have such a cold, uncaring heart. But I feel such a deep ache for the bears and other wildlife whose lives are cut short all because someone chose not to see the beauty of a living creature, but instead enjoys and takes pleasure in making an animal suffer and die. Black bear can live (where they are not hunted) to 25 years old. But where they are hunted, their average life span is only five years. How can someone cut short so much of an animal’s life all in the name of “sport?”

Only 6 percent of Americans hunt, but hunters kill more than 200 million animals a year. Do not be fooled that money for hunting is needed for wildlife management and to protect animals. Millions of dollars are poured into the law enforcement of hunting regulations and hunter education. Many of the wildlife agencies simply make their money from the sales of hunting licenses, so their major function is not to protect individual animals or biological diversity, but propagate “game” animals for hunters to shoot.

But you who do not hunt, you can help, you can make the lives of wildlife a safe one. State agencies need to answer to the growing constituency of nonhunters. It is our right to see them alive, not made into a rug, or some ridiculous “trophy” mounted on your wall. So post, patrol and protect your property from hunting. Don’t allow hunters and trappers to end a life on your land. Wildlife is losing so much of its habitat, so protect what is yours (and the animals) and don’t allow the slaughter of animals to take place in your backyard.

Maybe author Stefanie Laland put it best when she said, “The beings with whom we share this planet are, for the most part, conscious, sentient and mute. Perhaps this was a test by the Creator to see if we could reach beyond our own bias, the arrogance of the articulate. Can we humans comprehend that not only our own kind really matters? Can we expand our circle of empathy to include those whose language we cannot understand? In giving animals the full love and respect they deserve, we may finally learn to accept the animals of the earth as our brethren — before they are gone forever.”

Valerie Radziewicz lives in Bar Harbor.