I watched a documentary last night about Durango CO bear study. The local population of almost 400 dropped by half in 2012 from lack of natural feed and then deaths by a lot of conflicts with people and other reasons. I wondered if bear baiting would have kept them fed in the wild areas people hunt, i think baiting is illegal in CO. I know tons of bait is put out every year in WI.

I don’t think so. Most Americans that I’ve seen run baits use very little bait at a site. No corn fields in Colorado?

There have been several studies on this and yes it is amazing the difference it makes with the health of the bear population. Especially fecundity.

We had a bear eating 25 chocolate filled cream pies every night - 500 calories each - plus some corn and dog food. His butt grew 6" wider during the three weeks we pre baited before season. He left when we started hunting

yes I believe so , last time I baited I feed 300 pounds of corn a day plus other stuff, had bears laying off in the distant that I could see come in after I back off

I had the same experience Roy. I would go to the chow hall at KI and fill a five gallon bucket with scraps from breakfast. After I dumped it and was driving away, the bear would be on the pile before I got fifty yards down the path.

A well-respected bear biologist told me the same thing. Imagin a state like Maine where there are thousands of baits being baited for three months every year. The bait site are licensed and lots of them in place for 20-30 years.


I was trapping near a bait site that hadn't been baited for over a month. Something was coming into my sets and stealing the bait. I put up a trail camera and caught this:





After the first visit this is what he did to the traps:

All of the above, our birthrates and multiple births of 3-4 cubs increased significantly with the increase. There is little doubt the desire for a bear rug or trophy for the room has aided the increase in bear populations.

Not in northern Maine. We start with four 5 gal buckets and rebait with 2 buckets ever two or three days. When we bait hunt, we only use about half a bucket. When dog season opens we try to keep bait there 24/7

You guys might find this interesting. Camp 2 was my camp. the township boundaries shown are 6 miles x 6 miles. No open areas in the Maine North Woods. If there's a road there's a bait. I have one landowners leased sites shown on this image.

Makes you wonder who's doing the lying when we hunters claim we are controlling bear numbers by hunting them.

How many of those sites are leased to one outfitter?

Unknown, I guided for two outfitters there. One had 150 bait sites and the other had about 80.

Not so much baiting, but having available and abundant food sources does boost the population. I always say look at NJ. Between bird feeders, bait piles (deer hunting 6 months of the year with corn piles for days in the woods), a mix of agriculture and woodland berries, plus dumpsters, garbage cans and just straight up people who feed bears for fun we have some of the fattest, happiest and healthiest bears in the country. Our mild climate means they don't "hibernate", and sows are generally having higher cub counts because it's such a perfect climate/habitat.

In turn out bear population has, in my opinion, exploded in the last 10-15+ years. It's not uncommon to see 3+ cubs to a sow. Not bad for a state that all but decimated our population in the early 70's. Add in a heated and contested bear hunt that has been on again off again since 2010ish, we haven't had great success in managing the population consistently.

BUT we also say a fed bear is a dead bear... they acclimate to human interaction very easily, and they are nonplussed by humans. Which is a whole other ball of wax here.

When dogs bait and a spring season were in CO bears were rarely a problem in towns. Feeding them through the winter is a bad idea in my opinion. When we had bait dogs and a spring season plenty of bears still got tagged

Jurasic no corn grown in bear country. In the fall oak brush and acorns is a magnet

In the north (Maine) our bears are usually denned by mid-October. Don't see them again until April. Baiting is July 1 to October 31 Four months pre-den of all the eats they want.