Maryland Rejects $75,000 Offer to Cancel Bear Hunt

April 14, 2004

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and expand educational programs to solve bear conflicts, if the DNR’s plan for the first bear hunt in fifty years was withdrawn.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

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