In recent weeks Mainers have been bombarded with advertisements depicting a state overrun with deadly predators, of children at risk and hunting guides in poverty. We’ve seen bears portrayed as doughnut junkies and watched these animals shot at close range, shuddering into a heap of fur.

But at its core, the referendum proposing a ban on bear trapping and hunting with the aid of bait and dogs is not about black-and-white concepts such as biology or economics or even public safety.

It’s designed to be about ethics, the grayest of the gray areas in our public policy.

Leaders of the pro- and anti-referendum groups argue about the scope and duration of Maine’s potential losses, yet there’s no doubt that a successful bear referendum would have some financial consequences. For many voters, that alone decides the issue.

But for a person who believes that these practices are inherently wrong, the ability to make an income from them shouldn’t matter. For these voters, Question 2 must be decided by whether these hunting practices fit into an individual’s view of what is ethical in the Maine woods.

For decades, the baiting, trapping and hounding of bear have been legal hunting methods, practiced by countless good people who would never dream of poaching.

But as recent Wall Street scandals have made painfully clear, law is not ethics, and ethics is not law. For example, it’s legal to hunt for 30 minutes after the sun goes down, even on a cloudy day when it is prematurely dark. But few hunters would dream of taking that technically legal shot in bad light.

As Maine’s Warden Service Col. Thomas Santaguida wrote in his reply to a recent survey by the Bangor Daily News, the broadest definition of ethics comes from the law. From there, it’s up to a hunter to personally consider whether an action is right, based on his culture and experience.

The variation in ethical judgment, even here in Maine where residents tend to come from similar backgrounds, is vast. Pinning down the line between right and wrong can be difficult, even among hunters.

“It’s sort of like defining religion,” Harry Vanderweide, publisher of The Maine Sportsman, said during a recent conversation.

An informal poll conducted last year on Field and Stream magazine’s Web site indicated that 53 percent of respondents found bear baiting acceptable, while 47 percent opposed the practice.

Local hunters, too, have split on bear baiting in Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine membership polls, George Smith, SAM’s executive director, recently told the NEWS, though he would not reveal exact percentages.

Last week, elected officials, leaders in the hunting community, wildlife experts and animal activists responded to an informal e-mail survey by the NEWS asking their thoughts on what constitutes an ethical hunt.

Regardless of their stance on the bear referendum, nearly all spoke of hunters considering the rights of others by asking landowners’ permission to hunt, by not behaving recklessly, and by respecting the wildlife that they pursue.

The question of respect was particularly important to John Banks, natural resources director for the Penobscot Indian Nation in Old Town.

“Some tribal members actually conduct ceremonies upon killing an animal, to thank the creator,” he wrote.

Killing an animal in the most humane way possible and using as much of the animal as possible shows respect, Banks wrote, adding that, although the tribe has not taken an official position on the referendum, baiting bears, hunting them with hounds and bear trapping are not allowed on Penobscot land.Those who support the referendum argue that bears are degraded by hunters shooting them at close range while the animals feed, or by guides using dogs to corner bears so they can easily be shot by inexperienced hunters.

The value of a hunting experience should depend on the interaction with wildlife, not on the kill, or the trophy that it produces, they have said.

“Hunting without pursuit is just killing,” wrote Bob Fisk of Falmouth, the state’s most visible animal advocate and leader of the current referendum effort to ban baiting.

Daryl DeJoy, an animal advocate from Penobscot who has worked on the bear campaign, wrote about learning how to hunt from his grandfather.

“He was an avid, ethical hunter who would never kill something just for ‘fun’ or sport. He respected his prey and if he was unsuccessful, he simply said, ‘The deer outsmarted me today.’ He would not agree with what now passes for hunting in Maine,” DeJoy wrote.

Yet countless Mainers believe bear baiting to be the most ethical and respectful choice. For them, the proximity to the animal offers precision.

Unlike deer and moose, bear don’t have antlers to easily distinguish male from female. From a distance, it can be difficult to spot a sow’s cubs trailing along behind her in the underbrush.

And with heavy fur and a thick padding of fat under it’s skin, a full-grown bear cannot be killed easily; a well-placed shot is required.

“Hunters show respect for wildlife by striving for a quick, clean kill,” state wildlife biologist Jennifer Vashon wrote.

Bear hunting guides who spend hours watching bears from their tree stands rankle at the accusation that their sport is “too easy.”

Whether a type of hunting is challenging depends on the hunter – for example, his level of experience, whether he chooses to hunt with a shotgun or a bow, and how much time he can dedicate to the pursuit, several hunters wrote.

“Hunting ethics are learned, and they cannot be legislated,” wrote Harold “Brownie” Brown of Bangor, a former member of the DIF&W advisory council and lifelong hunter.

Almost every hunter who replied recalled memories of learning ethical basics at a mentor’s knee, then applying and fine-tuning those lessons over a lifetime of unpredictable circumstances.

“All too often, we discuss hunting ethics as if they were definable objects rather than a set of personal values that vary from situation to situation and from time-to-time,” wrote publisher Vanderweide.

Still, hunters constantly debate the minutiae of ethics among themselves, and for decades have created codes of ethics through mutual agreement.

The Boone and Crockett Club since 1893 has encouraged its members to hunt “fair chase,” which is described, in part, as the quickest kill possible and behavior that will “bring no dishonor to either the hunter, the hunted or the environment.”

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife teaches ethics as part of its hunter safety courses, distributing a small book called “Beyond Fair Chase,” by Montana writer Jim Posewitz, who warns that ethical behavior, not only in the eyes of the individual hunter, but also under the sharp gaze of society, is crucial if hunting and trapping are to survive the 21st century.

“To keep the opportunity to hunt, we must always remember that wildlife belongs to all the people. The future of hunting depends on how the majority of people view hunters,” Posewitz wrote.

For many referendum supporters, Question 2 represents precisely this sort of citizen backlash against state wildlife managers.

“When ethics come to a vote, it means that we have a massive failure,” wrote Will LaPage of Holden, who teaches in the forestry department at the University of Maine in Orono and who in the past has advocated against trapping coyotes with wire snares.

Regardless of state Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife biologists’ scientific qualifications, the presence of former SAM lobbyist Paul Jacques in the deputy commissioner’s post, and the preponderance of hunters and SAM members on both the DIF&W commissioner’s advisory council and the legislative fish and wildlife committee create the perception among many Mainers that the state is biased on wildlife issues.

“All Maine hunters and non-hunters, we as citizens of this state and this country, were afforded the right to raise our voices to correct a failed and corrupt system,” wrote Cecil Gray, a leader of Maine Hunters for fair Bear Hunting, a group that is advocating for the referendum.

“The wildlife of Maine belongs to all Maine’s citizens. It would be wrong to say that only those who are out to kill wildlife should have a say in how they do that,” wrote DeJoy.

But that’s very close to what some Mainers argue, saying that hunters alone have the understanding to determine ethics for their sport.

What looks like cruelty to the untrained and emotional eye may be in fact the most humane means of dispatching an animal so that it need not face natural forms of mortality such as cannibalism or starvation, they wrote.

“‘Ethical’ hunting, to me, means doing what is right for a wildlife population,” wrote Edie Leary, spokeswoman for Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the coalition opposing the referendum.

Unless an ethical issue has the potential to affect other people negatively, either through creating an unsafe environment or reducing wildlife populations to the point that they will no longer be sustainable for future generations, it should not be legislated, several leaders of Maine’s hunting community wrote.

“We use laws and rules to conserve and manage game populations and leave ethics up to the individual hunter … each hunter establishes his or her own ethical standards within those laws and rules,” Smith of SAM wrote. “It should be abundantly clear that forcing these decisions onto the public in a referendum campaign is a big and costly mistake.”

But Maine people are increasingly demanding the right to make just such decisions, as evidenced by increasingly virulent debates over coyote snaring, the recovery of gray wolf populations and the bear referendum.

On issue after issue, the state faces a philosophical divide between those who talk of how many animals are killed and those who talk of how the killing is done – an ethical chasm that, regardless of the outcome of next week’s referendum vote, will be a part of Maine life for years to come.

For detailed survey responses, visit www.bangornews.com.