Bear Baiting - Sample Op-Ed #1

Bear Baiting
Hunting for the lazy

For the bear hunter who doesn’t feel like going out and actually looking for bears, ten states, including [Your State], allow the unsporting practice known as bear baiting. When baiting bears, the hunter lugs in pounds and pounds of stale pizza and pastry, rotting meat, jelly donuts or other garbage, and stuffs it into a container in the woods. Once the bear has discovered the goodies, she will return to the site again and again to feed. All the hunter must do is wait for her to arrive and begin dining on her last meal, then shoot her. 

In one instance, a hunter stuffed parts of a horse’s body into a barrel and hung the head from a tree in an attempt to attract bears. The owner of a nearby hotel complained to the authorities because he was afraid, with good reason, that the bait pile would attract unwanted bears to the area and the rotting horse carcass would disturb hotel guests.

Aside from the obvious unethical and unsporting nature of the practice, bating bears also poses a serious public safety risk. Though some bears may be shot the first time they visit the bait station, others, particularly small bears or those deemed unworthy to grace a hunter’s trophy wall, are allowed to feed with impunity for the entire season, developing a taste for human food. Once the bait is removed, bears may trespass into human-inhabited areas, breaking into homes and cars or tipping over garbage cans looking for more stale pizza and jelly donuts. 

Human garbage is also not a nutritious diet for bears and is certainly not a natural one.

State wildlife agencies and the National Park Service publish literature asking us to not feed bears because of the problems it creates, reminding us that “a fed bear is a dead bear.” There is no logical reason why trophy hunters should be exempted from a very sensible rule that protects the public and wildlife alike. 

It’s time to put an end to bear baiting.


[Name, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail]