I will refrain from…

I will refrain from providing too many comments on the of baiting bears but will say I do not consider it hunting. There is no fair chase and this practice, in my opinion, conditions bears to unnatural foods and creates a introductory level of habituation which could very likely lead to increasing the human/bear conflict.
When you consider that most of the attacks on humans from bears is caused by surprised encounters or in the defence of food sources, the placement of bait closer to trails that the general public has access to, is a disaster in the making.
I have attached a link to a recently released study and while to focuses on the brown bear species, I believe it would be a critical oversight if the findings in this study were not considered when making a decision to reduce the distance in bait placement.