Bearing Down on a Problem

MOUNT NEBO, Md. â€”  Just around daybreak, David Ciekot staked out a spot here in the western woods near a town called Friendsville, climbed a white oak tree and waited under a heavy sky the color of gun metal.

For all the months of protests and legal wrestling that had led to this moment -- the opening of a planned six-day bear-hunting season in a state that had banned the practice for 51 years -- it only took half an hour for Ciekot to get what he came for.

At 7 a.m., with a single shot from 40 yards away, he downed a 9-month-old female black bear. It weighed in at 84 pounds.

The day was over before it had begun, and Ciekot was done, by law, for the season. Nevertheless, he was proud to have bagged the first.

“I didn’t really know if I’d see anything at all,� said the 35-year-old outdoors writer from the state’s Eastern Shore, still wearing his orange coat and hat. “The people of Garrett County have wanted to have a hunt for a long time.� Bears, he said, are “just a constant nuisance to them.�

Ciekot was one of 381 hunters to participate in an event that animal-rights activists had fought mightily to stop. Their efforts culminated unsuccessfully Sunday night with a candlelight vigil in front of the governor’s mansion in Annapolis, a four-hour drive to the east.

The end result was permission to take 30 black bears from an estimated population of 500. “There is no justifiable reason to allow hunters to shoot 30 bears,� said Michael Markarian, president of the Fund for Animals, which had filed a lawsuit against the state. “It’s not going to solve the nuisance problem. It doesn’t teach people to store food away from bears. It doesn’t reimburse farmers for their crops.�

But while activists demonstrated Sunday, the state used a lottery system to dole out the last of the licenses. The hunters -- many of whom worked in teams of two, with one license for both of them -- spent days scouting the territory.

They set out Monday in the morning darkness to take their positions. The weather was on their side -- cold and overcast. There was no wind, reducing the likelihood that the animals would pick up a human scent.

“Perfect for bear hunting,� more than one state biologist declared.

“This is the next step in bear management in Maryland,� said Harry Spiker, the black bear project manager for the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

Black bears once roamed plentifully throughout the state. But by 1953, the growth of the charcoal and timber industries had dwindled the population to a mere dozen, prompting state officials to protect the threatened stock with a hunting ban.

Then industry moved away and the state stepped up conservation efforts. The forests and the wildlife, including the bears, came back. By 1980, Maryland no longer considered black bears endangered.

Now this wildlife success story has turned a once-threatened species into a public nuisance -- particularly for residents in the state’s four westernmost counties, where most of the bears live.

Last year, 38 bears were killed by motorists.

Doug Whitacre, 36, regularly spots bears on his 200-acre farm in Garrett County. He has seen them in bird feeders and on hay bales. He watched one drag a neighbor’s garbage can at least a mile down the road. Although he has suffered significant property damage only once, Whitacre said, the close encounters left him afraid to let his two daughters play outside alone.

“I like to see deer and bear as much as anyone, but we’ve got a problem,� said Whitacre, who secured a permit to hunt on his property.

Over the last five years, the number of bear complaints has doubled to 417. Although only 11% of those incidents included damage to crops, the state has never been able to fully cover the annual claims, which range from $10,000 to $50,000, officials said.

Maryland permits hunting of all manner of species, including deer and ducks. But word that the protection of black bears would be lifted touched off a battle underscoring the political and geographic divides in this liberal-leaning state. Although much of Maryland considers itself aligned more with the urban mind-set of Washington or Baltimore, the rural, mountainous western reaches are more culturally akin to West Virginia.

“The bear hunt is sort of emblematic of politics in Maryland,� said Donald F. Norris, professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “It highlights the differences between rural and urban areas in the state.�

Maryland’s more liberal forces attempted to control the bear population with an education campaign in the 1990s. But the problem grew worse, and in February the state turned to its rural roots for a solution.

A battle ensued, in the state assembly and the courts, with each side accusing the other of manipulating politics and employing bad science.

Activists urged nonlethal methods of control such as sterilization, along with education to help humans and wildlife live in harmony.

But sportsmen and state officials argued that hunting had been a wildlife conservation model for a century.

“It’s an efficient and effective tool, and there has never been a species wiped out by the use of regulated hunting. So it’s not a question of why hunting, it’s a question of why not,� said Paul A. Peditto, director of the wildlife and heritage service for the Department of Natural Resources.

Similar struggles have played out in nearly a dozen states. Bear hunting is legal in 27 states, including California. Next month, Maine and Alaska will vote on ballot measures to limit the practice.

But if the experience in New Jersey is any indication, permitting the hunt does not always put the problem to rest.

That state lifted its 33-year ban last winter, and 328 bears were killed. But, according to Brad Campbell, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, state officials now believe that the bear population was overestimated by as much as half.

Worried about the consequences, Campbell stopped this year’s hunt to explore sterilization and other methods of population control. Hunting groups have filed suit.

By day’s end Monday in Maryland, at least 20 bears had been killed -- and the state canceled the remainder of the hunt, citing its “overwhelming first-day success.�

“We are concerned about ... the possibility of exceeding our target harvest of 30 bears,� callers to the state’s black bear hotline were told.

One of the lucky hunters was 59-year-old Sheridan Green, an IRS retiree.

He was perched on a grade when he saw a 135-pound male bear lumber into an acorn grove. The creature lifted its paw, and Green lodged a fatal bullet where he’d hoped, through the lung.

The bear fell, and Green had his prize: a skin to turn into a rug for his wife.