This is in response to Patricia Keene’s letter, March 25, about banning current methods of bear hunting.

With regard to bear baiting — bears eat their natural food first. I have pictures of bears coming near bait but not touching it.

The methods used by hunters in the great state of Maine to hunt bears are not cruel. To me, what is cruel is, in the spring, female bears follow around pregnant does waiting for them to drop their fawns and that is when the sow teaches her cubs how to kill. They do the same to moose calves.

Keene mentions horror. The horror is in the eyes of the pregnant doe knowing that the bear following her around is going to kill her fawn.

Leave bear management methods to state biologists. They know best.

Gene Trisch, Springfield

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