Calling Out The Big Guns Emotions, Spending Run High In Fight Over Bear Baiting

The ballot proposal drawing the biggest money on both sides this year doesn’t deal with taxes or gay rights.

Instead, it’s a proposed initiative to ban bear baiting which has attracted more than a quarter-million dollars. The measure hasn’t even qualified for the ballot, and it would affect only a tiny percentage of Idaho hunters. Nevertheless, emotions are running high.

Opponents note that 97 percent of the backers’ money - $42,500 - comes from the Washington, D.C.-based Humane Society of the United States, which is backing initiatives in four states this year. But hunting groups opposed to the measure, from both in and out of Idaho, have raised more than five times as much money as the initiative backers - $232,955 as of the last campaign finance report.

“We don’t want people from Washington, D.C., imposing their values and their choices and their agenda on us,” said John Watts, campaign manager for the Sportsmen’s Heritage Defense Fund.

Humane Society officials say the initiative was proposed by some of its 5,000 Idaho members, whose own dues amount to about $125,000, far more than enough to cover the society’s contribution to the initiative.

“Every penny of that has originated in Idaho,” said Lynn Fritchman, chairman of the Idaho Coalition United for Bears, the group sponsoring the initiative.

Clearly, both sides have plenty of money to pour into the effort. The Humane Society hired a Washington, D.C., media consultant, though it’s spent no money on ads yet.

The Sportsmen’s Heritage Defense Fund has turned to Watts, a Boise lobbyist whose other clients include the Idaho Outfitters & Guides Association and Idaho Trout Unlimited.

Though each side claims the other represents out-of-state interests (just 14 percent of the sportsmen’s money is from out of state), the initiative is drawing lots of home-grown attention.

Fritchman, a retired Army officer and third-generation Idahoan, says he joined the Humane Society of the United States only after becoming involved in the initiative effort. His interest was prompted by his work as a volunteer for the Fish and Game Department, where part of his duties included checking bears that were shot by hunters.

Bear-baiting involves using rotting meat and other bait left in pits. Hunters then stake out the sites, and shoot bears when they come to feed. Last year, 1,360 of Idaho’s 20,000 bear hunters used bait.

The initiative would ban the use of bait, hounds and spring hunting of bears - practices already banned for other big game animals, except for cougars, which can be hunted with hounds. Fritchman said hunters’ descriptions of those practices in their bear hunts seemed to him “to be a violation of the hunter’s ethic of fair chase.”

The practices have been controversial for years, with most hunters and non-hunters opposing them in a 1992 Fish and Game Department survey.

Initiative foes say such decisions should be made by scientists, not voters. The Idaho Fish and Game Commission agrees, and has come out against the measure.

Major donors to the anti-initiative campaign include the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which gave $10,000, in addition to smaller contributions from some of its chapters.

Gary Wolfe, executive vice president of the Missoula-based foundation, said his group’s involvement “has nothing at all to do with bears.”

“We just don’t believe ballot initiatives are the way to manage wildlife,” Wolfe said.

Other major donors include the National Rifle Association, Safari Club International, the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep and the Idaho Wildlife Council.

The Sportsmen’s Heritage Defense Fund also has received hundreds of smaller contributions from groups like the Clark Fork Rod & Gun Club, the Central Idaho Hound Hunter Association, Idaho State Bowhunters, Pheasants Forever and the Idaho Trappers Association. Individual contributions include $882 from longtime hunter and former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus.

“I think the concern from the sportsmen is that anti-hunting groups have in the past used ballot initiatives to erode hunting privileges,” said Wolfe.

The Fish and Game Department approved a black bear management plan in December 1990 that would have banned bear-baiting. The next month, a group of hunters protested to the Fish and Game Commission, which suspended the plan and ordered a new one developed that didn’t ban any particular hunting method.

“That’s political pressure,” said Fritchman. “That’s not wildlife biology.”

When initiative supporters gather signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot, someone from the other side usually shows up, too.

On a recent day at the Boise zoo, a signature-gatherer was handing out pamphlets headed, “Support the black bear initiative” over a picture of a bear cross-hatched by gun sights. “Baiting, hounding and orphaning are not sporting,” the pamphlet said.

A few feet away, a worker for the other side handed out pamphlets headed, “How important is your privilege to hunt and fish?” Smaller type below said, “If you enjoy hunting and fishing in Idaho, you must join the campaign to protect Idaho’s hunting and fishing, and stop the radical anti-hunting group!”

Fritchman, who said he started hunting when his dad gave him his first gun at age 11, said he would never support a hunting ban. But, he said, “It’s been a very effective means of keeping us from getting signatures.”

Wayne Pacelle, vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, said, “Our theme is trying to stop the worse abuses. The argument that this is the first step to ban all hunting is a figment of the imagination of an extreme segment of the hunting lobby. It’s really an admission that they cannot defend these practices on their merits.”

The Humane Society is not a fan of hunting. But the group, which formed in 1954 and has more than 2 million members, generally directs its efforts toward such ends as stopping dog- and cock-fighting, investigating animal cruelty cases worldwide, lobbying and public education.

It opposes hunting that’s purely for recreation or trophies, but supports wildlife management.

“Some people in the animal rights movement consider us very conservative,” Pacelle said. “Our mission is to stop gratuitous harm to animals, and we work within the system to achieve that goal.”

The society, which received more than $25 million in contributions in 1995, was the main backer of an initiative approved by Colorado voters in 1992 that mirrors this year’s Idaho initiative. It also backed a successful Oregon initiative in 1994 to ban bear baiting and hound hunting of bears and cougars.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BATTLING GROUPS Humane Society of United States Claims more than 2 million members, including 5,000 in Idaho. Contributed $42,500 to the campaign for an Idaho initiative to ban bear baiting, spring bear hunting and hound-hunting of bears. Spent $929,000 on lobbying nationwide in 1995. Opposes recreational or trophy hunting and the killing of animals “needlessly or for entertainment or to cause animals pain or torment.” Supports use of animals in research only when there are no alternatives and the animals suffer no pain.

Sportsmen’s Heritage Defense Fund Is a political action committee formed in 1995 to oppose the black bear initiative. Supported by 116 Idaho organizations, mostly hunting groups. Honorary co-chairmen are Lt. Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter; Rep. Golden Linford, R-Rexburg; and Sen. Marguerite McLaughlin, D-Orofino. Has raised $232,955 to fight the initiative.

Sources: Idaho secretary of state’s office; Humane Society of the United States; Internal Revenue Service Form 990; Sportsmen’s Heritage Defense Fund.