Many hunters’ worst fear has been realized: The Humane Society of the United States is coming to Maine to wage battle.

Early this week, representatives of HSUS and Maine Friends of Animals held public meetings in Bangor and Falmouth to launch their campaign for a referendum in November 2003 to ban bear baiting, hunting bear with dogs and the use of bear traps in Maine. They have formed a political action committee called Maine Citizens for Fair Bear Hunting.

The referendum’s language is still under study, but Bob Fisk, founder and director of Maine Friends of Animals, a local group that claims 800 members, assured people during a Monday night meeting in Bangor that the new coalition has no interest in an outright ban on the state’s $12 million black bear hunt.

“We’re not against hunting,” Fisk said. “We just think that these three cruel practices should be outlawed. Maine hunting as a tradition is being demeaned.”

Bear baiting is the practice of luring a bear to a feeding station with stale pastries, molasses, honey or meat for several weeks in late August so that a concealed hunter can shoot the feeding bear when the season opens in September.

Opponents call bear baiting cowardly and unfair. They cite statistics indicating that many bear are wounded by novice hunters and travel as far as 20 miles into the woods to die.

But bear hunters, guides and even the state’s bear biologist, Randy Cross, believe the practice is necessary to control the size of the bear population. Maine’s thick forest and bears’ natural reclusiveness make the animals one of the most difficult animals to hunt.

“The end of the bait hunt in Maine is the end of bear management in Maine,” Cross said Tuesday. “This is the only feasible way that we can kill the [number of] bears that we need to to stabilize the population.”

Maine’s bear population is estimated at 23,000. Last year, nearly 4,000 were killed during the fall season. Fewer than 100 were trapped, about 400 were taken by hunters using dogs, and perhaps a few hundred were killed by unaided hunters, but the vast majority- more than 3,000 animals -were shot over bait, according to Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife statistics.

Some people eat bear meat, but the sport is primarily a trophy hunt in which hunters often pay more than $1,000 to hire a guide. More than 80 percent of bear hunters are from other states – most prevalently from Pennsylvania, where bear hunting is legal, but baiting is not.

Cross predicted that a baiting ban would result in an initial population boom, then widespread starvation as the bear population began to self-regulate. An increase in the number of “nuisance bears,” which wander into human communities in search of food, would be certain, he said.

Fisk argued that hunting would continue as it has in other states where baiting has been banned, and there would be no management problem. More than half of the United States allows bear hunting, but only nine states permit baiting, and Maine is alone in allowing the use of traps, he said.

Several other national organizations besides HSUS have joined the effort. They include the Fund for Animals and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

HSUS has never lost a referendum battle over bear baiting. In recent years, bans have been passed in Colorado, Oregon, Massachusetts and Washington. Efforts led by other wildlife groups in Michigan and Idaho have failed, however, said Katherine Bragdon of HSUS. She is based in Seattle and coordinates referendums on the national level.

Recent polls done by the HSUS suggest that as much as 80 percent of the Maine public opposes bear baiting, she said.

A Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine poll indicates that even the hunting community is divided on the baiting issue. SAM’s executive director, George Smith, could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but the powerful hunting lobby is expected to lead the fight against the referendum. In other states that have tackled bear baiting, the National Rifle Association has provided substantial funding.

“We’re going up against very big money,” Bragdon said.

Maine Friends of Animals has twice introduced legislation to ban bear baiting and hunting with hounds, but the bills have been killed by the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee.

“The committee is pretty much in lockstep with SAM,” Fisk said.

Maine Citizens for Fair Bear Hunting must collect 75,000 signatures by Oct. 15 to get its referendum on the November 2003 ballot.

“Mainers vote the way they see things,” Fisk said. “We need to take our cause to the public, and that’s what we’re doing.”