Scores pack hearing on bear hunting restrictions

AUGUSTA – Months after Maine voters rejected restrictions on bear hunting, lawmakers held a hearing Thursday on a half-dozen new bills to outlaw hunting tactics some critics consider unsportsmanlike and inhumane.

But in a new twist to the debate, supporters Thursday offered a deal.

Maine Friends of Animals President Robert Fisk Jr. told the Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that if lawmakers support restricting both trapping and the use of hounds to hunt bear, his group will abandon future consideration of a referendum to ban baiting.

“We are neither radical nor unwilling to work with you,” Fisk, a former legislator who led last fall’s referendum campaign, said during a hearing packed by about 200 people at the Augusta Civic Center.

Fisk’s group said last fall’s referendum would have passed easily if the question had sought a ban on hounding and trapping, and had not included baiting.

The leader of the hunting group Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine called Fisk’s compromise offer “outrageous” and unacceptable.

SAM Executive Director George Smith also said it’s disrespectful to hunters to come back to the Legislature with bear hunting restrictions so soon after voters said no to last fall’s proposals.

“You have 389,455 reasons to reject these bills,” said Smith, referring to the number of votes cast in November to reject the bear hunting restrictions.

The bills before the committee seek to prohibit:

. Landowners from charging a fee for bear baiting.

. Bear baiting except in special circumstances such as to protect livestock.

. Hunting bears with dogs.

. Feeding bears in the wild (it does not apply to bear baiting).

. Using a dog to hunt or pursue bear.

. Trapping bears except with the written permission of the state game commissioner.