[The_Neon_Cowboy]

You have go to read this article I found searching for my local pizza place online

Luring bears with pizza isn’t sporting, critics say

Published Sunday, December 29, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) - Opponents liken bear baiting - which involves leaving anything from doughnuts to pizza out while hunters lie in wait - to "assassination." Defenders argue it’s needed to control the bear population.

Congress will be asked again next year to decide if the practice, which is the most common way to hunt bears in states that allow it, should continue to be allowed on federal lands. But a similar effort last year didn’t even make it past a House subcommittee, failing on a 38-25 vote.

Rep. Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat who represents the area south of Washington, is not giving up.

"This is just wrong," said Moran, who plans to again introduce legislation to ban bear baiting next year. "It’s comparable to shooting fish in a barrel."

Because federal officials defer to states on wildlife management, bear baiting is allowed in federal parks in the nine states where it’s legal - Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Alaska.

In Minnesota, Gov. Jesse Ventura, who once declared, "Until you’ve hunted man, you haven’t hunted yet," is a vocal bear-baiting critic.

"Going out there and putting jelly doughnuts down and Yogi comes up and sits there and thinks he’s found the mother lode five days in a row - and then you back-shoot him from a tree?" the former professional wrestler said in a recent interview.

"That ain’t sport - that’s an assassination."

But Karen Noyce, a bear researcher with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said baiting helps keep the bear population in check, at just over 20,000 in the state. That has minimized nuisance problems with bears getting into neighborhoods and rummaging through people’s garbage, she said.

Noyce also argued that hunting bears without bait in the state’s woody terrain would be difficult.

"You don’t normally see bears unless they’re at a place where they are feeding," she said.

Wayne Pacelle, a vice president with the Humane Society, which supports Moran’s proposed legislation, discounted that argument.

"They have thick forests and lush vegetation in Washington and Oregon and other states that have long banned bear baiting," he said.

A ban on federal lands would have a significant impact. In Wisconsin, for example, the federal government is the second-largest landowner.

Rick Posig, president of the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, said bear baiting isn’t as easy as critics make it out to be.

"You can sit on a bait for hours on end," he said.

http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2...229News019.asp

[tastyweat]

lol!

[JoyStick]

"Going out there and putting jelly doughnuts down and Yogi comes up and sits there and thinks he’s found the mother lode five days in a row - and then you back-shoot him from a tree?" the former professional wrestler said in a recent interview.

"That ain’t sport - that’s an assassination."


If it's for control, then it's not a sport anyway..

What a moron. Way to state the obvious.

[dj_stick]

lol