Money isn’t the issue in bear referendum
Columnist Tom Hennessey’s figure of $62 million attributed annually to the Maine bear-hunting season (BDN, Oct. 2-3) seems to be crowding the upper limits of the recent study conducted by the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Policy, and released by the deceptively named Maine Fish and Wildlife Conservation Council.
Elsewhere in the same Saturday edition of the BDN the figure is given as “between $30 million and $70 million,” an imprecise survey by anyone’s standards, although still a great deal of money. One problem with this figure as used by the MFFWCC is that it assumes there will be no bear hunting in Maine whatsoever should the referendum pass in November. I like to think there are still hunters serious enough to purchase permits and hire guides even if they’ll have to hunt fairly.
But money isn’t the point anyway. The question is whether it’s unnecessarily cruel to kill bears that have been conditioned to come into set baits of stale doughnuts (surely the best way to addict otherwise wild bears to food meant for humans), or to shoot them out of trees after they have been run to exhaustion by relays of radio-collared hounds.
Last year the voters of this state turned their backs on considerably more revenue when they defeated the Penobscot Nation’s bid to build a casino, because they objected to the gambling activities that would generate this kind of money. I’m not saying Maine couldn’t use more economic opportunities, but if it’s only the money we’re after regardless of its consequences than why not legalize dog fighting, big money in some parts, or bull fighting? How about prostitution?
And this slippery slope argument that ending baiting, hounding, and trapping black bears will lead to a ban on all types of hunting in the state is as logical as people who fear guns predicting that since the state licenses some people to carry handguns, soon everyone will be required to carry one.
Jerry Stelmok
Atkinson
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