Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Board voted 11-1 last week to reject two controversial bids from hunters to establish a season for hunting black bears with bait.

The vote comes as state wildlife officials revisit Vermont’s bear regulations in light of what state scientists say is a growing bear population and a rise in bear-human conflict in recent years.

“I think everybody in this room tonight wants a similar outcome, which is a healthy population of black bears in Vermont,” said John Austin, who leads the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s wildlife division, speaking at the May 20 board meeting.

The first petition, filed by the Vermont Bowhunters Association, called for Vermont to establish a fall baiting season similar to those in Maine in New Hampshire.

A second petition filed by hunters Kevin Lawrence and Bert Saldi echoed that request and asked regulators to extend the regular bear season in the fall and allow hunters to get two bear tags instead of one.

Right now, Vermont has two bear seasons — one in the spring and one in the fall. Hunters can pursue bears with rifles, by archery or using hounds, though the latter has a separate season.

Baiting — setting out food with the intention of enticing an animal into a particular location — is not allowed for large game species like deer, bear and moose. However, the state does allow hunters to hunt coyotes with bait, and set traps with bait for furbearing species like beaver.

Black bears have made a remarkable recovery in Vermont since the 1970s, when Vermont Fish and Wildlife estimates there were fewer than 2,000 left in the state. Today, department scientists estimate there are between 7,500 and 9,500 bears in Vermont.

Vermont’s Wildlife Management Plan says the state should aim for a population around 5,000 to avoid depleting the bears’ wild food stores.

Additionally, human-bear conflicts appear to be on the rise in Vermont and cost the Department of Fish and Wildlife roughly $1 million each year, staff say.

“We are, in effect, victims of our own success. It’s gone beyond what we ever imagined,” Austin said. “It’s a great thing, a huge opportunity, and at the same time, it has become a growing challenge.”

The Vermont Bowhunters Association’s petition says baiting bears could address these population concerns more efficiently than with conventional hunting.

“Baiting allows you to be selective,” said petitioner Kevin Lawrence, arguing it would be easier for hunters to ensure they aren’t shooting a sow with young cubs.

Lawrence further argued baiting would allow hunters to kill bears that have been habituated to humans in more urban areas, where conventional hunting would be challenging. He said the department could require hunters share GPS coordinates for where they’re baiting so the sites can be inspected by wardens.

But state bear biologist Jaclyn Comeau says the science doesn’t support baiting as an effective solution for managing the bear population.

She says human behaviors — namely, how people store their trash and food and where they live — are major drivers of the rise in bear-human conflicts Vermont has seen in recent years.

“The more opportunity they have to take advantage of those food sources, the more chance there is that it can start to change their behavior over time, and now they may be seeking out those foods, not just when their wild foods are scarce, but they’re seeking them out as a regular part of their foraging strategy,” she said.

Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife

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Courtesy

Roughly 100 people and at least eight environmental organizations, including some town conservation committees, filed public comments urging the department to reject bear baiting.

Bear hunters themselves appeared to be divided over the issue.

Speaking at the April 22 Fish and Wildlife Board meeting, bear hunter Butch Spear of Newbury, a former president of the Vermont Bearhound Association, urged the board to keep baiting illegal.

“It’s against the law to shoot a deer over bait,” he said. “Why do you want to make it legal to shoot a bear over bait?”

Other hunters worried baiting would tarnish their reputation among non-hunters.

Linda Capucardo of Sheffield was one of several people who voiced concern about the ethics of baiting bears.

“We’ve spent tons of time in Vermont telling people to secure bird feeders, to secure their waste, to secure everything, so that we don’t habituate bears to human food sources,” she said. “And now we’re going to give them a human food source? That’s just inviting disaster.”

Many speakers questioned the narrative that Vermont has too many bears or will for long.

Black bears are heavily dependent on beech nuts for food, and their abundance is threatened by beech leaf disease and beech bark disease. Both are growing threats to Vermont’s forests.

After rejecting the bear baiting proposals, the board voted unanimously to advance Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recommendation that the state allow hunters to purchase two bear tags each year, and to extend the fall bear hunting season into December, through deer muzzleloader season.

The board is expected to discuss other aspects of the bear regulations at its June meeting, including a potential ban on killing sows with cubs in sight and changes to the rules governing hunting bears with hounds.

Lawmakers will next get to review the proposed updates to the bear rule to make sure they comply with state law, at which point there will be further opportunities for public comment.