Please do not allow bear…

Please do not allow bear baits closer to trails and right of ways than they are already. Our forest estate has enough public perception issues related to roadside trash, improper grubbing for road construction (ditching for removal of road building materials), improperly managed slash and chipper piles, litter, and skeletal remains of former hunting encampments. In may years of walking, driving and hiking the backwoods of Ontario for both business and pleasure I have stumbled across many rotting barrels of flesh and donuts and other "baits" even under the current regulations. I am not an anti-hunter and I am not against a safe and well managed bear hunt, although I do express some reservations about baiting game in general.

Bears routinely travel roads and trails as they forage and I am concerned that bait placement further away from the road is the greatest insurance against a bear expressing aggressive behaviour against a passers by that may be perceived as a "threat" to a food source. I also firmly believe that bait placement is one of the greatest insurance factors influencing lines of fire that might intersect a trail, and discouraging discharge of a firearm from a road or trail.

Bears are very good at detecting baits and can do so from kms away. Bears are very good at leaving abundant sign of their presence. There is no valid scientific argument that can be made that bears would not detect the bait or that they have to be close to the road or trail in order to determine if the bait has been visited.