AUGUSTA, Maine - Anew economic study prepared for the Maine Office of Tourism and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife finds that bear hunters, both residents and non-residents, spend $35.4 million in Maine each year. The analysis by Southwick Associates also finds that bear hunting is directly associated with 565 jobs.
Tom Allen is the vice president of research for Southwick. He says spending occurs across the state, but mostly in rural Maine.
"Most of the spending occurs in Aroostook County with $9.3 million spent by bear hunters there, $8 million spent in the Maine Highlands Region," Allen says. "Those are the two top regions. After that it drops off to $4.7 million in the Maine Lakes and Mountains Region and $4.5 million in the Downeast and Acadia Regions."
The results were based on an email survey of more than 9,000 hunters who were identified through their licenses. It finds that the average bear hunter spends about $3,300, and that the total economic value of bear hunting to the state is nearly $53 million.
But Katie Hansberry, of the group "Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting," says the survey has inflated the value of bear hunting in Maine.
"The cruel and unsporting practices of bear baiting, hounding and trapping are actually holding back Maine's economy," Hansberry says. " When you look at these other states that effectively manage their bear populations without these practices they engage many more hunters in fair bear hunts and they actually generate more revenue."
Hansberry's group is leading the effort to ban the use of bait, hounds and traps in Maine's annual bear hunt. She says 20 years worth of data from Colorado, Oregon and Washington show that the number of hunters increased dramatically when unsporting hunting practices were outlawed there.
But Tom Allen of Southwick Associates says a previous survey in 2004 found that bear hunters would not continue to hunt in Maine if the use of bait, hounds and traps were outlawed, as proposed in Question 1 on the Maine ballot this year.
View the entire economic study.
