The Associated Press
July 23, 2004

Lawmakers seek bear hunt delay, pending hearing

By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press Writer

A legislative committee is asking state game managers to delay authorization of Maryland's first bear hunt in 51 years while the panel holds a public hearing on the proposed regulations.

Sen. Paul G. Pinsky, presiding chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review, said he's not convinced that the hunt planned for this fall in far western Maryland will target the black bears responsible for crop and property damage.

But Paul Peditto, director of the Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife and Heritage Service, said Thursday the hunt would not only reduce human-bear conflicts in the mountains of Garrett and Allegany counties, but help curb the spread of black bears into central and eastern Maryland.

"If the request is to delay it beyond the window of time necessary for us to implement it, that might give us cause for concern because we submitted the regulation proposal with the intent to have the committee endorse our recommendation for a fall 2004 limited bear hunt," Peditto said.

Pinsky's committee is responsible for reviewing proposed state regulations but it lacks the authority to block their adoption. It can either approve them, oppose them, which could trigger a rewrite or an appeal to the governor, or request a delay for further study. The DNR can refuse the request and adopt the hunting rules, but not until at least Aug. 18, nearly three weeks beyond the agency's Aug. 1 target date.

"The committee expects to engage the department in a constructive review of issues relating to these regulations," Pinsky, D-Prince George's, wrote in a letter Monday to Gov. Robert Ehrlich, informing him of the panel's intentions.

Regardless of the DNR's response to the delay request, Pinsky said the committee will schedule a public hearing next month on the proposed rules. He said his main concern is that the hunt, planned for Oct. 25-30 and Dec. 6-11, won't necessarily eliminate the bears blamed for more than $34,000 in crop and property damage in western Maryland last year.

"You don't know if the ones they kill are the ones that did the harm, so they could have a hunt and have the same bears knocking around in people's back yards and trash cans. Then they would have to have another hunt and before long we have no bears," Pinsky said.

Peditto said the DNR plans to match hunters with landowners with documented bear problems, "which will very directly reduce those conflicts."

The hunt would end once hunters have killed 30 of the estimated 400 bears in the hunt zone, the area west of Evitts Creek. Peditto estimates that another 100 black bears live in other parts of Maryland.

On the Net:
Maryland Department of Natural Resources:
www.dnr.state.md.us

© 2004 Associated Press