Annapolis, MD – The Fund for Animals and The HSUS learned today
that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has
rejected a substantial financial offer for solving bear
conflicts and compensating farmers for bear damage. In a March
17 letter, the two organizations offered collectively to
provide $75,000 to compensate farmers for bear damage and
expand educational programs to solve bear conflicts, if the
DNR’s plan for the first bear hunt in fifty years was
withdrawn.
Bear damage to agricultural crops is approximately $10,000
to $40,000 annually. Had the DNR accepted this offer from the
animal protection groups, Maryland farmers would be compensated
fully for bear damage for the first time, and additional funds
would be available to expand the DNR’s existing educational
programs and responses to bear nuisance complaints.
“It is clear that the DNR is not seeking to solve bear
conflicts in western Maryland, but simply to put bears in
trophy hunters’ sights,” said Michael Markarian, President of
The Fund for Animals, based in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“Hunting bears for trophies or rugs will not provide money to
farmers and will not provide the relief that citizens are
demanding. Governor Ehrlich’s administration should look for
constructive solutions and new funding partnerships, not trophy
hunting opportunities.”
The DNR estimates that the bear population in Maryland is
only 266 to 437 animals. Last week, three members of Maryland’s
U.S. Congressional delegation—Chris Van Hollen (D-8), Benjamin
L. Cardin (D-3), and Elijah E. Cummings (D-7)—wrote to Governor
Ehrlich and the DNR expressing their “grave concern over the
State of Maryland’s plans to allow black bear hunting to begin
this October, for the first time in half a century.”
“There are fewer black bears in Maryland than there are
pandas in China or endangered grizzly bears in Montana,” said
Wayne Pacelle, a senior vice president for The Humane Society
of the United States, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. “The
relatively few conflicts that occur can easily be solved by
providing money to farmers and teaching people how to store
food and trash properly. The DNR’s rejection of this generous
offer makes it plain that this hunt was never about solving
bear-human conflicts, and entirely about appeasing the NRA and
other trophy hunting groups.”
A copy of the offer from the two groups is available at:
www.MarylandBears.com/about/75koffer.cfm
More information: www.MarylandBears.com
