As a waterfowl, small game…

As a waterfowl, small game and big game hunter in Southern Ontario, this proposal is a step in the right direction but still places too many burdens on hunters without providing hard data evidence that bait placement restrictions for black bear are necessary.

As an ethical and responsible hunter, if a sow is to be harvested, it is crucial to be sure that she has no cubs with her. This is achieved by setting up a bear bait to keep her in one place to give enough time for her cubs to join her at the bait if she does in fact have any.

By maintaining these artificial bait placement restrictions, you are greatly limiting suitable hunting areas in Southern Ontario. This will not address people-black bear conflicts and will also reduce the Ontario government revenue from hunting licence sales as a result of squeezing out black bear hunters.

It is already very hard to find property to hunt without added the added restrictions of being 500m from a dwelling. Even with property owner permission to hunt, many rural properties in Peterborough and the Kawarthas that have black bear are within 200-500m of neighbouring dwellings that would also require written permission despite not being on their property, and providing a service in the form of harvesting nuisance bears.

These restrictions must be rescinded unless hard evidence proves they are necessary.

For hunters to maintain confidence in the MNRF and its decisions, it is crucial that the MNRF publicly release all hard evidence used to justify all four of these current bear bait restrictions. If decisions are being made without sound scientific data, trust is diminished, restrictions are increased, and hunters will either be forced to give up some (bear) or all of their heritage activity passions or worse they will make their own decisions regardless of what the regulations say due to a perception (right or wrong) that politics - not science - are deciding our fish and wildlife decisions in Ontario.

I want to do my part and follow regulations as a conservationist and hunter, but the Ontario government must do its part too and make sure regulations actually make sense.