There’s more than one way to get a bearskin rug on your floor. You can shoot a bear after your dog chases it up a tree.
You can snare it in a metal trap. Or you can lure it with a barrel full of donuts. All those methods of bear hunting are legal in Maine. But do they sound fair to you?
Animal rights activists around the country are protesting the laws. They believe they are cruel. But hunters want to keep the laws as they are. They argue: If the Maine laws change, how will the state replace the money that bear-hunting tourists once brought?
But here’s another problem hunters might want to consider. Dumping thousands of pounds of human food into the wood has created a well-fed bear population. Those bears keep having baby bears. People have been encountering bears 25% more than they did 10 years ago.
You may want a bear on your floor—but you don’t want to meet one when you’re not hunting!
