Activists May Confront Bear Hunters
With spring bear hunting season beginning Monday, activists in Idaho took to the field to dissuade sportsmen.
The Idaho Coalition United for Bears is pushing a signature drive to do away with spring bear hunting, and the use of baiting stations or hounds to hunt bear.
Three members of the Earth First! group - one woman and two men - went in search of hunters in North Idaho Monday, hoping to discuss the “barbaric practice,” said Natalie Shapiro of Cove-Mallard.
The Cove-Mallard Coalition is an umbrella group which also includes opponents to logging in the Cove-Mallard area of Idaho’s Nez Perce Forest.
“The activists are wanting to peacefully confront the hunters with this practice,” she said. “Even in the hunting community, it’s not looked on too favorably,” Shapiro said.
The trio intended to photograph hunters to try to deter them, she said.
A 1992 study suggested that many Idaho sportsmen oppose those methods. Sportsmens’ groups, fearing that any ban is a step down a slippery slope to a total ban, are fighting the initiative.
The effort needs 41,335 signatures by July to get on the ballot. I-CUB says it’s more than halfway there.
Opponents to spring hunting claim that - although it is illegal to kill female bears at the time - they still are shot, leaving cubs which cannot fend for themselves. Hunters maintain that baiting and treeing bears with hounds allows them to get close enough to determine a bear’s sex.
The coalition said the largest black bears are killed mainly for their hides and hunters often take only a small amount of the meat, although it is illegal to leave the meat behind.
A press release from the activists said hunters killed about 1,300 bears in the 1994 spring hunt.
John Beecham, Idaho Fish and Game biologist, said the 1,300 figure actually represents all of the bears killed in a year. The number is taken from bear hunters who turn in information about the bruins in a mandatory check-in.
Fish and Game research shows the Idaho bear population is healthy, especially among the female sows, he said, adding the initiative drive is geared toward the emotional impact of hunting rather than the biological question.
“The real issue is if we allow this to go to the ballot, it takes away all the flexibility in the system,” he said.
“These are the kind of issues for the Idaho Fish and Game Commission to consider,” Beecham said. “My preference is they come in here and hash it out with the commission.”
, DataTimes