Member Since: 12/17/2010
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Ke$ha Fights to Stop Maine Bear Hunters
 
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Mitch Cummings likes to take a rifle into the Maine woods near his Bethel home, climb onto a platform secured to a tree and spend hours watching a plastic barrel stuffed with stale pastries.
He’s hunting black bears, using high-calorie snacks purchased in bulk and a spray that smells like jelly doughnuts to lure the animals into a narrow clearing. When he sees one he likes, he’ll shoot to kill.
“I just stay as still as possible,” said Cummings, 37, after showing off the fresh paw prints and bear droppings that surround a blue barrel licked clean by one that got away. “Bears are very smart.”
Eighty percent of the almost 3,000 bears killed each year during the state’s four-week hunting season in late summer are lured with bait, according to the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department.
Animal-rights groups want to stop it. The practice gives hunters an unfair advantage and encourages bears to acquire a taste for human food, according to the Humane Society of the U.S. The group is reviving a fight that had some success in western states two decades ago. It’s backing a ballot measure next year that would end baiting, trapping and using hounds to kill bears.
“Maine is an outlier on the bear-hunting methods, and we need a course correction,” said Wayne Pacelle, chief executive officer of the Washington-based Humane Society of the U.S., in a telephone interview. “The odds are very badly stacked against the bears.”
Ten years ago, the Humane Society pushed a similar referendum in Maine. It was defeated 53 percent to 47 percent on the 2004 ballot, according to the secretary of state’s office. Last week, Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting started collecting signatures and have already reeled in a celebrity endorsement from pop singer and rapper Ke$ha, who promoted the effort during a glitter-strewn concert in Bangor last month.
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