HAGERSTOWN, Md. — The state yesterday rejected a proposal from two national animal-protection groups to call off a planned bear hunt in western Maryland in exchange for $75,000.
The Department of Natural Resources said it gladly would take the money that the Fund for Animals and the Humane Society of the United States offered to fully compensate property owners for bear damage and pay for nonlethal management of nuisance bears — but not on the condition that there be no hunt in the fall.
“This isn’t a quid pro quo arrangement where we could be effectively blackmailed into taking enough money to do this,” said Paul Peditto, director of the DNR’s Wildlife and Heritage Service.
“We believe the time has come, and we believe the science substantiates that our bear population needs to be checked at its current level, and none of the nonlethal tools will achieve that end.”
Michael Markarian, president of the Fund for Animals, said the offer was conditional on the state maintaining its 50-year-old ban on black bear hunting.
“If they flatly reject this offer and decline to call off the hunt, then it is clear that they are not interested in solving conflicts; they simply want to allow hunters to kill bears for trophies and for rugs,” he said.
The DNR is developing regulations for Maryland’s first bear hunt since 1953. The hunt would target 30 bears in the mountainous area west of Cumberland where Mr. Peditto said at least 400 of the state’s estimated 500 black bears live.
The animal welfare groups made the offer last month in a letter to Mr. Peditto that said the money, matched by $25,000 from the state, would more than cover bear damage claims and bolster the department’s program of public education and aversive conditioning for nuisance bears.
The groups said the value of their proposal would exceed what the DNR would raise through bear-hunting application fees and permit sales.
But Mr. Peditto said managing bears costs more than $100,000, all generated by fees for hunting and trapping of other species and a federal tax on sales of hunting gear.
“It is inappropriate to suggest that this is about raising money, and it never has been,” he said. “This is about the right thing to do for this bear population at this time.”
Mr. Peditto said bears caused $50,060 worth of damage to crops and property in far western Maryland last year, according to a preliminary tally. That would be the highest annual total since 1996, when the state started partially compensating property owners for bear damage under a program subsidized by sales of black bear conservation stamps. Payment has ranged from 41 percent to 70 percent of total claims.
Delvin E. Mast, a Garrett County dairy farmer who has submitted claims every year, said he wants the bear population reduced.
“Last year, we had bear coming right into the barn, taking seed corn right out of the barn,” he said.
“It’s not the dollar issue. It’s the issue of having something as dangerous as black bear coming into buildings that we frequent ourselves.”
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