September 12, 2007
Bear Baiting Laws and Legislation
Viewing the practice as unfair and unsportsmanlike, citizens have placed a series of anti-baiting initiatives on statewide ballots.
In 1992, Colorado voters banned bear baiting through a statewide initiative, soundly rejecting the hunters' self-serving argument that you need to bait and shoot bears to control the population.
In 1994, Oregon voters followed suit, as did voters in Washington in 1996. That same year, Massachusetts voters also passed an initiative to ban bear baiting.
Bear baiting is illegal in 18 of the 29 states that allow bear hunting. It is still permitted in 11 states: Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
