How would you vote on Maine's bear hunting initiative.

[rickb]

In November Maine voters will be asked:

Do you want to ban the use of bait, dogs or traps in bear hunting except to protect property, public safety, or for research?

How would you vote if you lived in Maine?

[Mike04345]

NO!!! http://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/sp...eferendum.html

[rocketsocks]

Not much of a hunter these days, and was never a trophy hunter, but if I lived in Maine and was to take the emotional aspect out of the vote so as to put meat on the table for my family, No, I would not vote to remove hunting over bait, use of dogs, or traps where legal.

So that's a No vote

Now, not fully understanding all the issues you guys have up there, could you elaborate as to how this vote came to be?

[TJ aka Teej]

Bear over bait is for tourist hunters and locals who suck at hunting.
The argument, that if some guide in Jackman can't guarantee a successful bear kill to his out of state clients it means herds of bears wandering around Portland eating children, is nonsense.

[rickb]

NO!!! http://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/sp...eferendum.html

I find it interesting that 93% of the bear harvested in Maine are taken in traps, with hounds, or over bait.

Any idea how that 93% breaks down among those three categories?

[JohnnySnook]

NO! Also.
Its a lot harder to find a bear to shoot with out these methods.

I also feel its trains smaller bears to be wary of free food at baited areas and being tree'd by dogs does the same thing. I'm not sure how the trapping works so I can't really comment on that.

The reason for this belief is that many hunters are not taking small juvenile bears. A hunter many have a few bears around a baited site and will shoot the largest bear in front of smaller ones. The same thing for treeing smaller bears with dogs and not killing them does the same thing.

It makes them fear or least be wary of humans in my mind. Too me it makes no sense to ban these practices.

[JohnnySnook]

Bear over bait is for tourist hunters and locals who suck at hunting.
The argument, that if some guide in Jackman can't guarantee a successful bear kill to his out of state clients it means herds of bears wandering around Portland eating children, is nonsense.

Lets also remember not everyone can afford to hire a good guide to take them hunting.
How many of the hunters are actually fit enough to go hike around the woods. Do they know how to be quite or will they be making a ton of noise scaring the bears away on a stalk?
Others may only have a day or two to bag a bear.

Take away the easy kills and I'm the number of kills will go down. Not everyone is professional hunter.

It like hunting deer in high fenced areas and not doing on public land. Is that right? I mean you see a 8 point buck and the guide tells you that deer is $5,000 to shoot. 10 pointer is $8,000, and god forbid you want to go shoot a trophy buck or an exotic.

[TJ aka Teej]

From the IFW site:
By Hunter Residence (2013)
Residents 1,059
Nonresidents 1,786
Bear over bait is all about the revenue produced by marketing to out of state clientele.

[Tipi Walter]

Definitely ban the use of dogs, bait and traps. Be men and hunt without dogs. We use dogs down here in TN and it's a circus. I call it ethnic cleansing. Occasionally we have "organized hunts" in a 5 or 6 day period with 400 hunters and a thousand dogs. The dogs are the real pests as they are left unsupervised in the woods for days at a time, and glom onto the nearest backpacker to steal his food and run hiding into his tent and claw his thermarest.

Maine has a human population of 1,328,000. It has a black bear pop. of around 30,000. So, which is doing the most habitat destruction? Humans love to call what they do "harvesting" or "culling" to make the bear habitat more sustainable. What about the overcrowded human habitat?

[Old Hillwalker]

Support the Right to Arm Bears.

[TJ aka Teej]

I'll compromise my stance: bear over bait for residents only.

[SouthMark]

Definitely ban the use of dogs, bait and traps. Be men and hunt without dogs. We use dogs down here in TN and it's a circus. I call it ethnic cleansing. Occasionally we have "organized hunts" in a 5 or 6 day period with 400 hunters and a thousand dogs. The dogs are the real pests as they are left unsupervised in the woods for days at a time, and glom onto the nearest backpacker to steal his food and run hiding into his tent and claw his thermarest.

Maine has a human population of 1,328,000. It has a black bear pop. of around 30,000. So, which is doing the most habitat destruction? Humans love to call what they do "harvesting" or "culling" to make the bear habitat more sustainable. What about the overcrowded human habitat?

Ditto........

[rickb]

Now, not fully understanding all the issues you guys have up there, could you elaborate as to how this vote came to be?

I don't know a great deal on this, but Maine has an initiative petition process whereby it's citizens can put issues directly on the ballot (bypassing the state legislature) provided they get a whole lot of signatures.

That is what happened here.

The Humane Society of the US helped (and by helped I mean provided a lot of money) to get hose signatures from Maine Citizens, and the vote is coming up in November.

One thing I found interesting is that the initiative bundles baiting, hounding and trapping all together. My understanding is that the organizers of the petition offered to withdraw if the legislature passed existing proposals to ban just the hounding and trapping-- and leave the baiting as it now stands.

As you can imagine, the sportman's groups didn't like that much-- called is extortion-- and saw to it that the Maine legislature didn't act on hounding and trapping.

Now it is an all or nothing vote.

[rocketsocks]

I don't know a great deal on this, but Maine has an initiative petition process whereby it's citizens can put issues directly on the ballot (bypassing the state legislature) provided they get a whole lot of signatures.

That is what happened here.

The Humane Society of the US helped (and by helped I mean provided a lot if money) to gett hose signatures from Maine Citizens, and the vote is coming up in November.

One thing I found interesting is that the initiative bundles baiting, hounding and trapping all together. My understanding is that the Organizers of the petition offered to withdraw if the legislature passed proposals to ban just the hounding and trapping-- and leave the baiting as it now stands.

As you can imagine, the sportman's groups didn't like that much-- called is extortion-- and saw to it that the Maine legislature didn't act on hounding and trapping.

ah, now I understand Teej's comment. Not unusual to lump wants together to push an agenda, kinda like and add/hoc back door agreement. Thanks for the reply. Plenty a laws I disagree with in my state, the the vote is the best game in town for change.

Bear over bait is for tourist hunters and locals who suck at hunting.
The argument, that if some guide in Jackman can't guarantee a successful bear kill to his out of state clients it means herds of bears wandering around Portland eating children, is nonsense.

[Deer Hunter]

I wouldn't ban all three. I would vote no.

[Bucketfoot]

Lets see, 30,000 bears in Maine and how many thousands of acres of forest. Could it be that the bears are so hard to find that baiting and hunting with dogs are the only really effective methods of hunting. A chance encounter with a bear while hiking or driving along the road is a far different thing then walking into the woods and trying to find one while hunting. That's when you find out how hard they can be to find. As someone who has hunted all my life I would not want someone who is ignorant of hunting issues to be voting on them. Also as a ten year hiker who has hiked 1600 miles of the AT l would not want someone who does not hike and is ignorant of hiking issues voting on things that would affect my opportunities to hike on the AT. Nobody does more damag damage than the ignorant voter.

[rocketsocks]

Lets see, 30,000 bears in Maine and how many thousands of acres of forest. Could it be that the bears are so hard to find that baiting and hunting with dogs are the only really effective methods of hunting. A chance encounter with a bear while hiking or driving along the road is a far different thing then walking into the woods and trying to find one while hunting. That's when you find out how hard they can be to find. As someone who has hunted all my life I would not want someone who is ignorant of hunting issues to be voting on them. Also as a ten year hiker who has hiked 1600 miles of the AT l would not want someone who does not hike and is ignorant of hiking issues voting on things that would affect my opportunities to hike on the AT. Nobody does more damag damage than the ignorant voter.

agree, but that how referendum works, not always kind to the special interests.

[Old Hiker]

............................. herds of bears wandering around Portland eating children........................

Still trying to decide why this would be a bad thing. I teach 6th grade.......................

Vote: No.

[rocketsocks]

Still trying to decide why this would be a bad thing. I teach 6th grade.......................

Vote: No.

1st graders are even worse, belive me...I went though it 3 times. grimmey little liberals.

[rickb]

As someone who has hunted all my life I would not want someone who is ignorant of hunting issues to be voting on them.

I get that.

As a non hunter, the idea of a sportsman being led by a registered Maine guide to an area where a bear has been eating stale donuts for a month, seems rather "un sporting".

That said, the trophy will look no different.

What surprises me is why so few hunters find this strategy to be honorable? I get the idea that the only thing that matters is a full freezer when it comes to deer, but I thought sport mattered at least to some degree when it came to bear.