Bear Baiting – Sample Op-Ed #2

Bear baiting: unethical, unnecessary, and dangerous

Shooting unsuspecting bears over piles of jelly donuts or rotting pieces of meat is not hunting as most people in [Your State] might think of it. It is luring an animal to a spot and shooting him like a fish in a barrel. Hunters often defend their sport as adhering to strict rules of “fair chase”, but bear baiting violates the principle of fair chase on two grounds: it is not fair and it is not a chase.  

Hunters find a spot that bears are likely to pass by in the course of their ramblings and they set out food that the big animals enjoy. Every day, they restock the bait pile until they know that one or more bears have gotten comfortable coming there. Then they hide nearby and shoot the biggest bear they see from ambush at close range when he comes around to get his daily treat. The bear has no chance.

But bear baiting is not simply unethical. It is also dangerous for everyone living within miles of a bait pile. Black bears are very shy animals. They will go miles out of their way to avoid coming in contact with human beings—with one exception: sometimes a bear learns that food can be found where there is human activity. Pet food left in an open bowl in the backyard, a garbage can that is not tightly secured, food left behind at a campsite or picnic ground can all teach bears to look for food around humans. It is bears who have learned this lesson who take up a life of “crime” and become “problem bears” who come into people’s yards and picnic areas looking for food.  

It is easy to see why claims that bear baiting reduces human-bear conflicts are false. Random trophy hunting does not target the few problem bears who cause conflicts. In fact, hunters usually go deep into the woods, far from where problem bears hang out. Shooting bears based on their size does not reduce conflicts any more than shooting everyone on the street who is more than six feet tall would reduce urban crime. 

Hunting over bait increases rather than reduces the number of problem bears. Bear hunters want big animals with long, glossy fur, and they ignore the smaller bears and the bears with less attractive coats. These “unsuitable” bears are allowed to go on their way having learned to look for food around human activity. Bear baiting teaches bears to look for food around human beings just as surely as an unsecured garbage can. Hunters who bait bears are creating the very problem that they like to claim they are solving.

The real reason that some hunters support bear baiting (Many do not) is that it makes the job of shooting a trophy size bear a lot easier. Instead of tramping through the woods for days on end, and possibly coming home empty-handed, you just stock your bait pile for a couple of weeks, then hide in ambush and blaze away at close range. In principle and in practice, bear baiting is a bad business that has no place in [Your State].

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