Maine puts off plan to assess whether human food is affecting bear numbers

The state with the largest population of black bears on the East Coast is putting off a plan to study how the consumption of human food affects the animals.

Maine is home to more than 35,000 bears, and the population has been growing quickly over the past 15 years. The state issued a request for proposals earlier this year looking for a contractor to evaluate the role human food might have played in the growth of the population.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife has decided to cancel the request, state documents said, but is likely to revisit it in the future, said Wally Jakubas, a scientist with the department.

The bears’ consumption of human food is a big subject among hunters and conservationists in Maine because most bear hunters use human food, including granola and trail mixes, as bait for the animals.

The state’s request for proposal stated that because “most black bears in Maine are harvested with the use of bait, the question of whether anthropogenic foods contribute to the growth rate of the bear population has been raised.”

The state has backed off the study for now because it needs to reevaluate its methods and make sure there is a practical way to conduct the study, Jakubas said.

The department is also experiencing personnel changes, and the timing of the study isn’t great, he said. Another challenge of the study is how to find out what kind of biological impact consuming bait has on bears, Jakubas said.

“This is a good time to put aside, reevaluate and get some opinions from some other scientists,” he said. “We’re still going to make this a priority. … What we’re trying to do is minimize its growth rate so the bear population doesn’t become a real nuisance problem.”

The growth of the bear population in Maine has led state wildlife managers to consider overhauling the state’s hunting rules. State legislators considered a change offered by a pro-hunting group this year that would have given state biologists the ability to adjust the length of the season and the number of animals a hunter can kill but decided to put off the changes until at least next year.

Meanwhile, animal welfare advocates have made the case that hunting with bait has encouraged the growth of the bear population by providing the animals with free, fattening food. Bear hunts are often unsuccessful, even when bait is used, leaving the animals with a free meal. Jakubas said bait likely doesn’t constitute enough of the bears’ diet to play much of a role.

Karen Coker, who heads a wildlife advocacy group called WildWatch Maine, said hunters shouldn’t be “subsidizing their diet if you want to control the population” of bears.

Limiting bear-human interactions can be an issue for all three northern New England states, all of which manage the population with hunting. Still, nuisance bear encounters happen every year.

In New Hampshire, state Department of Fish and Game officers had to euthanize a bear after it got into a Jackson home on Saturday. Vermont game wardens have destroyed two bears in recent weeks.

The Maine bear hunt begins on Aug. 26 this year. Hunters were allowed to start laying bait on July 27.

Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

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