Connecticut State's Bear Hunt Bill Shot Down
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

FOA Friends of Animals
July 2018

Common sense and truth prevailed among those legislators on the Connecticut State Legislature's Environment Committee who shot the vile bear trophy hunting bill down with their votes.

Connecticut’s black bears are safe thanks to Friends of Animals and our supporters. In March, a bear trophy hunt bill was shot down by the Environment Committee of the General Assembly 21 to 8 with one member absent.

“FoA is relieved that common sense and truth prevailed among those legislators on the Environment Committee who shot the vile bear trophy hunting bill down with their votes,” said FoA President Priscilla Feral.

“The CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection bureaucracy needs to advance education without shooting animals to death, and they can’t be the mouthpiece for only 1 percent of state residents who hunt.”

FoA took out ads in Connecticut newspapers and testified at a public hearing in March, pointing out that there have been zero fatal bear attacks in CT but there have been 10 humans killed by hunters and 114 injured in CT since 1982, according to data provided by the state to FoA in response to a Freedom of Information request.

“Allowing a bear hunt will not make residents in the state safer,” said FoA Communications Director Fran Silverman. “In fact, there is a weak correlation between the population of black bears and bear attacks, according to a study in The Journal of Wildlife Management. Bear-human conflict is more closely correlated with human behavior.”

“Bear-proof garbage cans and education, not guns, are what’s needed to prevent human/black bear conflict in Litchfield County, where a whopping 182,571 people live and a paltry 235 black bears reside,” added Nicole Rivard, editor of Action Line. “DEEP already has a nuisance bear program in place—there were only 5 nuisance black bears in the entire state in 2017. As one state biologist told us recently, black bears are actually shy.

“Shooting bears in a bear trophy hunt will not teach the ones who aren’t slaughtered not to be opportunistic feeders. But educating people about how their behaviors enhance risks will make a difference.”

Return to Animal Rights Articles