FARMINGTON – Opponents of the bear-hunting referendum went head-to-head Tuesday night at the University of Maine at Farmington.
Nearly 60 people, students and local residents, attended the event sponsored by the school’s political science club.
The current state bear population as estimated by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is 23,000 to 24,000, said Roger Lambert, representing the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine, which opposes the referendum to ban hunting bear with bait, traps or hounds.
Supporting the ban, Lisa Haines, an environmental scientist representing Maine Citizens for Fair Bear Hunting, dismissed this number saying that scientists just don’t know. According to her, they used only .5 percent of Maine’s geographical bear habitat for the count and “extrapolated that number to the whole state.”
“It’s not statistically significant,” she said.
She went on to say that bears are naturally self-regulating – they do not sexually mature until age 5 and have only one litter every other year, she said.
The department is “doing a fine job maintaining the population,” said Lambert, adding that 95 percent of all bear taken in the state are done so with methods that would be banned if the referendum passes.
Haines argued that in Colorado, Washington and Oregon, where baiting and trapping have been outlawed, there has been an increase in bear hunting and the population in those states is stabilized.
Lambert cited the recent reinstatement of the bear hunt in Maryland – the first in 30 years. New Jersey, too, had to bring back the hunt to keep the population in check. He agreed that bears can self-regulate but not if the habitat keeps moving, he said.
Though admittedly there has never been a death in Maine from an encounter with a bear, there have been recorded maulings, said Lambert, who cited an incident of a local man who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time – namely, a berry patch.
Haines denied the allegation, saying there have been no reported injuries in the state from bear attacks. She referred to recent scratches sustained by a young man in Standish. The boy, she said, approached a sow and her cubs and did not need any medical attention.
“They’re using scare tactics,” she said.
“Don’t take the bait,” she added, the irony not lost on attendees who chuckled.
“There’s nothing fair about hunting,” Lambert said. The only way to make it fair would be to run after an animal bare-handed, he said.
“It’s dreadful, it is not humane and it ain’t pretty,” he added, “but we’re hunter-gatherers in Maine.”
He challenged listeners to consider their eating habits.
“If you eat meat, you ought to think about this,” he said. “We have to leave our hearts at the door and use our heads.”
Haines argued using the cruelty of the hunt. She told of bears chased two to six hours by hounds and one caught in a tree with a trap and log dangling from its leg for 24 hours before a hunter “put it out of its misery.”
Punctuating her point, an 18-inch-wide trap slammed shut around a 3-inch-thick birch branch as demonstrated by an assistant.
However, several audience members challenged Haines in the open forum by asking questions.
The issue of the taste of bear meat was raised, which some said was less than appetizing.
While one woman said she liked the taste, a man responded “You can’t legislate on taste buds.”
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