Bear hunt’s future hangs by a slender thread

Maine’s 2004 bear hunt is just about over. Although fall deer hunters may take a few bears during early November, provided the bruins don’t go into hibernation early, the majority of Maine’s bear harvest occurs during the bear-baiting season in September. After all is said and done, bear hunters will bag about 3,5000 bears from Maine’s robust bear population that exceeds 23,000.

This hunt, which could be outlawed this November if a majority of citizens get hoodwinked by the emotional cant of the anti-hunting zealots, will bring millions of dollars to the state’s economy and provide much-needed jobs in rural Maine. This fact, along with the usefulness of the bear hunt as a wildlife management tool for state biologists, serves to make the November vote a monumental decision.

Have you ever noticed how monumental issues are often connected to a slender public-relations thread?

Take the materials used as bear bait, for example. When I was a kid, trappers and bear hunters used spoiled meat to attract bears. Doughnuts were something you brought to have with your hot coffee, not to feed the bears. As I recall, the use of jelly doughnuts as bear bait began about the time Dunkin’ Donuts and other “fast coffee outlets” began to cater to an impatient generation on the move.

I got to pondering this and some related matters the other day while carrying big bags of old doughnuts to my bear bait sites. If Maine voters decide at the ballot this November to outlaw traditional bear hunters like me, historians may look back and attribute the demise of Maine bear hunting to, of all thing, the doughnuts – “the slender thread.”

Here’s why. The anti-hunting stalwarts have been able to exploit the doughnuts-as-bait issue to stir up emotions and gin up public opinion to their advantage. Just review the campaign rhetoric. The anti-bear baiting supporters have said repeatedly that bear hunters use “jelly doughnuts and stale pastries” to bring bears within shooting distance.

To the average voter, who may not have a clue about what traditional bear hunting involves, this one-dimensional portrayal of “the cruel bear hunter” strikes a seductive chord. It stirs a common emotion among the Disney generation.

Most of us struggle with our sweet tooth. So we immediately identify with the bear and ascribe human traits. Like a kid (or a grownup) who can’t keep his fingers out of the cookie jar, the bear is us. We pay the price in extra poundage, but the bear is lured to its doom by a raspberry-or cr?me-filled special.

Actually, most Maine bear guides go way beyond stale pastries and concoct their own unique “goody piles” for bait sites. Bait mixes may comprise everything from molasses and honey to discarded chocolate and licorice-based liqueur. After all, the name of the game is to make the bait site as odiferous and attractive as possible to the bear. Wearers of Chanel No. 5 or Brute are familiar with this gambit.

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No matter how compelling the bait may be many bears won’t approach the bait until darkness has fallen. Those who do chance it invariably circle the bait site undercover and downwind while awaiting a sound or scent of a bigger bear or human predator.

Of course, all bear bait setups are different, but the bears that I have striven to outwit during the past eight years haven’t made out too badly. Dozens of them have had a chance to dine after dark and fatten up at my work and expense. Three adult bears, including one sow with cubs, fed in front of me with impunity and were allowed to walk away to gorge another day – one got away with a flesh wound, one died quickly on opening day of bear season after 30 days of complimentary eats.

So you see, Maine black bears as bears really haven’t had it so bad. In the meantime, the bear hunt has made it possible for state bear biologists to stabilize our large bear population and keep it healthy. That isn’t likely to be the case if the traditional hunting methods are banned.

In time, bears will exceed their carrying capacity and create conflicts with humans. As for the rest of us, especially sporting camp owners, bear guides and outfitters, taxidermists and retailers, the ban will be damaging, if not downright disastrous.

As sportsmen, we need to contact our nonhunting friends and neighbors before the November election and encourage them to examine what is really at stake when they vote on Question 2.

V. Paul Reynolds, of Hampden, is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal, a Maine Guide, and co-host of the weekly radio program, “Maine Outdoors.”