If the bear referendum were held today, baiting, trapping and hunting with dogs would be illegal in Maine, according to a statewide poll released Friday.

The telephone poll of 600 randomly selected voters indicated that 58 percent would vote in favor of the referendum, 37 percent would vote against the referendum, and that 6 percent remain undecided. The margin of error for the poll is between 3 and 4 percent.

The question was part of a larger survey conducted seasonally by Critical Insights, a Portland-based firm.

Edie Leary, spokeswoman for the pro-baiting Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Council, said Friday that the numbers didn’t surprise her. Her group’s effort thus far has been focused in northern Maine where fewer voters are located, she said.

“We’re the underdog in southern Maine. Once we get our educational campaign going, you’ll see those numbers start to shift,” she said.

“Hopefully it shows that the opposition’s scare tactics of bears in everybody’s back yard is not connecting, and that our message of needless animal cruelty and unethical hunting is connecting,” said Bob Fisk of Citizens for Fair Bear Hunting, the group that proposed the referendum.

“That’s really good news,” said Cecil Gray of Hunters for Fair Bear Hunting, another pro-referendum group. “I just hope it stays that way … I always look at it as an uphill battle.”

The Humane Society of the United States had conducted a poll of Maine voters before agreeing to help Maine Citizens for Fair Bear Hunting when the started the referendum effort last year, and found that nearly 80 percent of voters would have supported a ban on baiting, they said.

Since then, however, the three political action committees involved in the campaign have raised more than $1 million for the continuing effort to lobby voters.