AUGUSTA – Those who oppose changes to Maine’s bear hunting laws packed the Civic Center Wednesday for the required public hearing on a proposed referendum to ban bear trapping and hunting with bait and dogs.

Just a few dozen people spoke Wednesday afternoon, but more than 100 hunters, fishermen and guides made a statement with their presence. When Norman “Skip” Trask, spokesman for Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Council – a political group formed to oppose the referendum – asked his allies to stand, the entire room rose as though choreographed.

The tens of thousands of people who signed petitions to get the bear issue on November’s ballot, however, were conspicuously absent.

It is the pro-hunting bias of the Legislative Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee that forced this issue to a referendum in the first place, and making the case for hunting reform to them would have been futile, said Bob Fisk, of Maine Citizens for Fair Bear Hunting.

Fisk joined with members of Hunters for Fair Bear Hunting to stage a pre-hearing news conference announcing their joint boycott.

“This is a classic example of why we have a referendum process,” Fisk said, adding that previous committees have unanimously defeated similar bear bills. “We want to make a point of the complicity of the department.”

But despite Fisk’s advice that his group’s members not attend, a handful of people argued in favor of the referendum.

“Maine’s fish and wildlife resources belong to all the people of Maine,” said John Glowa of South China. “Be on notice that we are here to take them back.”

Glowa, who works with the Maine Wolf Coalition but was not speaking on its behalf Wednesday, challenged the ethics of both the committee and the bear hunting community.

“Shooting a bear after you’ve trained it through jelly doughnuts to come to you is not a sport. It is not hunting, it is killing,” Glowa said. “Once again [the committee] put politics first, and there is no place for politics in bear biology.”

However, Brett Bowser, a Pennsylvania native who now attends Unity College and serves as its student body president, countered that baiting is the ethical choice.

“Ethics is taking good shots,” he said, arguing that baiting gives hunters the time to select their prey, saving mothers and cubs. “[The effort to ban baiting] is all based on emotion and not science.”

The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife repeated its argument that most bears are hunted over bait, and so the referendum would interfere with biologists’ ability to manage Maine’s growing population of 23,000 bears.

“Bears are not just doing well, they’re thriving,” said Ken Elowe, head of DIF&W’s Bureau of Resource Management.

“Basically, if we don’t take 3,500 to 4,000 bears [each fall] we’ll see an increase in bear populations. We know that … if the population does stabilize it will be, no doubt, at a level much higher than the public is able to tolerate,” Elowe said.

Jen Burns of Maine Audubon testified that her group, which neither supports nor opposes the bill, has studied the issue and agrees that bear trapping and hunting with bait and dogs does not harm the overall bear population or result in the death of other wildlife. Maine Audubon has restricted its role to biology and did not weigh either economic or ethical concerns.

However, several guides and sporting camp owners testified that the estimated $12 million that bear hunting brings to Maine would be a great loss to rural communities if the measure passes, either as a bill or a referendum.

“Banning bear baiting would mean not only the loss of my living, but possibly the loss of my home,” said Gloria Curtis, who supports her family by running a hunting and fishing lodge near Portage Lake in Aroostook County.

Trask, speaking for Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Council, which is made up of about 200 organizations from around New England, called the referendum’s language “deceptive and irresponsible,” and accused proponents of being linked to national animal rights groups seeking to ban all hunting and trapping.

“I suspect they know that their true agenda will be revealed here today, and they don’t want to answer the tough questions,” Trask said.

A work session on the bill, labeled LD 1938, has been scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday, April 8.