Baiting Is Productive Management

A Washington Fish and Wildlife Department report to the Washington House Natural Resources Committee provides excellent reasons, based on scientific criteria, why voters should reject Initiative 655, the measure that bans the use of bait to hunt bears and the use of hounds to hunt bears, cougars, bobcats and lynx.

The initiative, sponsored by well-known anti-hunting organizations, uses ill-conceived, emotional reasons in place of scientific management of wildlife.

The wildlife department, barred by law from taking a position on a public initiative, prepared the report at the request of the Natural Resources Committee.

The report is an eye-opener for those who will base their vote on their emotions Nov. 5. It makes clear that the consequences of passing the initiative will not only be costly to the department but, in the end, will create problems that will disturb and alarm the state’s residents, particularly those who live in rural areas where populations of wild animals are likely to increase.

In effect, the ban would result in increases in the number of bears and cougars and in nuisance and damage activity.

To prepare the report, the department analyzed bear and cougar population numbers and fluctuations in the state, took into consideration what has happened in states where baiting was banned and how much money would have to be spent to control predator populations.

Ending baiting, the department says, will result in a 50-percent drop in the bear kill. In areas where black bear populations are below carrying capacity, reducing the recreational bear kill by 50 percent would lead to local population increases of 3 to 6 percent a year. Bear populations in areas not at or near carrying capacity would provide recruits to less-populated habitats.

“The ability of hunting seasons to reduce black bear damage and nuisance activity, and to respond to black bear human safety concerns is dependent upon a successful increase in the local bear harvest. Currently, the most efficient methods by which hunters kill bear is with the aid of bait or hounds,” the report says.

Bait and hound hunters take 50 percent of the bears killed each year.

“The first year after the passage of Measure 18 in Oregon, a 1994 ballot initiative comparable to Initiative 655, black bear complaints increased 64 percent,” the agency says. “Increases in black bear complaints are expected to be similar in Washington.

Passage of the initiative “would reduce the recreational cougar harvest by an estimated 75 to 85 percent,” the report says.

Almost certainly, cougar populations would increase. In Oregon, cougar numbers, as the result of the banning of hound hunting, are up 8 to 10 percent a year.

The only effective way for hunters to kill cougars, the report says, is by using hounds.

“From 1987 to 1993,” the report says, “753 cougars were killed under a permit system. All cougars were taken with hounds. In 1994 and 1995, in an effort to provide some additional hunting opportunity, the state adopted a special no-hound, permit-only cougar season in addition to the ‘hounds allowed’ permit hunt.

“In those two seasons, 121 hunters tried to kill cougars without the use of hounds. Three cougars were killed, a success ratio of 2.5 percent, while 633 hunters who used hounds killed 457 cougars,” for 72-percent success.

The department says that passage of the initiative would make it necessary to increase spending by more than a $1 million a year to control nuisance animals.

The department is considering either maintaining hound packs or contracting with hound owners to capture trouble-making animals.

The issue, it’s apparent, is far more complex than appears on the surface. Washington residents would be far better served if they allowed their professional wildlife managers to manage the state’s wildlife, not organizations that have a track record of distorting facts and appealing to emotions.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Fenton Roskelley by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 3814.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Fenton Roskelley The Spokesman-Review