FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, May 21, 1997
CONTACT:
Mike Markarian, (301) 585-2591, MikeM@fund.org
Eric Glitzenstein, (202) 588-5206, EGlitz@aol.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Attorneys for The Fund for Animals have filed a comprehensive 50-page opening brief in their lawsuit over the Forest Service's national policy allowing the use of bait to hunt black bears on national forests. The lawsuit, which argues that the baiting policy violates federal law, is scheduled for oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals on September 4, 1997.
Last August, the case was dismissed by District Judge Thomas Jackson. Rather than confront the legal arguments directly, Judge Jackson speculated that "Plaintiffs' long-range objective is to cause the Forest Service . . . to abolish most if not all hunting activity on federal forest lands."
"The Forest Service has the legal authority and both the moral and environmental responsibility to prohibit baiting on national forests," says Eric Glitzenstein, attorney for The Fund for Animals. "Judge Jackson's dismissal did not even begin to address the government's flagrant violations of the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and other federal laws."
In 1993, The Fund for Animals filed a suit against the Forest Service that halted bear baiting on national forests in Wyoming. That prohibition was lifted by the Forest Service's March 1995 national policy allowing bear baiting on national forests in states where baiting is allowed. The Fund filed suit again, alleging that the nationwide bear baiting policy violates federal law.
Bear baiting involves the placement of food -- including pastries, rotten meat, and even the carcasses of horses who have been walked into a forest and killed -- in bear habitat to attract bears for trophy hunting. Once the unsuspecting bear feeds on the bait pile, the hunter kills the bear at point-blank range. Baiting has resulted in the over-killing of bears in local areas along with impacts to threatened and endangered species such as the gray wolf, grizzly bear, and fisher. Of the 27 states that allow bear hunting, only nine (Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) still allow bear baiting. Voters approved ballot proposals to end bear baiting in Colorado in 1992, Oregon in 1994, and Washington in 1996.
"No one can defend littering public lands with piles of rotting meat and jelly doughnuts, and then shooting a feeding bear at point-blank range," says Mike Markarian, director of campaigns for The Fund for Animals. "There may be more so-called sport in shooting a caged bear at the zoo."
For a copy of the 50-page opening brief, please contact The Fund for Animals at (301) 585-2591 or MikeM@fund.org.