This commentary is by Henry Coe of Danville. Inspired by recent news coverage about bear hound training and related issues, he thought the letter he sent last April to the Vermont House Natural Resources Committee deserved a wider airing.
I write as an 80-year-old Vermonter who used to enjoy deer and partridge hunting, and now try to accompany my grandsons as they learn to hunt ethically, and to enjoy the sport.
As much as I love hunting and being in the woods, I have been a lifelong opponent of open-jaw trapping and am deeply opposed to the chasing of any animal with domestic dogs or specifically bear hounding dogs.
When I lived in West Charleston on Route 5A some 40 years ago, I watched as a neighbor’s dog chased a deer through a swamp. I mentioned it to my friend. He immediately said, if you see my dog chasing any deer again, please shoot it. That was the Vermont ethic of the time and I still feel it should be the ethic.
Unfortunately, as difficult as that responsibility was, I did shoot my neighbor’s dog the second time I saw him pursuing a deer in my swamp. I carried the dog carcass to my neighbor and helped him bury it in his backyard. Not a happy occasion, and one which I will never forget.
I ask, what is the difference between an organized team of dogs with radio collars chasing a bear (perhaps with cubs), and a single dog chasing a deer? Has a bear less feelings than a deer? All animals have feelings of fear and terror when being chased by a dog. It should not be permitted.
As humans sharing a small planet with other species of sentient animals, can we not live in harmony and respect with them? I think the large majority of Vermont citizens would agree with my feelings on this.
This fall, while brush-hogging a remote pasture, a pickup with hounding dogs in cages stopped on the fourth-class road in the town of Albany. As the driver prepared to release his dogs, I went up to him and quietly and respectfully requested he not pursue his hobby on or around my woodlot. I invited him to come hunt deer in season and to stop by our deer camp.
He listened and explained that he was helping to save the corn harvest in bottom lands by the Black River, and that after being chased from the corn, the bears would run to higher ground in the hardwoods.
On the following weekend, I was working on my remote log cabin and heard the barking of bear hounds far above my own land. They were chasing a bear down toward my cabin and passed by it. I could hear the continual barking, which lasted this particular chase some 20 to 25 minutes. There was no way the owner of the hounds had any control over his dogs.
Later, I hiked down the hill just in time to find him leaving with his dogs back in their cages. It was the same pickup that I had spotted the weekend before, and whose owner I thought understood and respected my feelings, Obviously he did not.
I have also read that bear gall is highly prized in China and there exists a black market trade, originating in states like Vermont, just as there is a black market for prized white bobcat belly pelts in China for full-length ladies coats that fetch over $100,000 per coat to wealthy Chinese.
You who have the power to limit this trade. I respectfully request you follow your conscience and act to limit or ban open-jaw trapping, which does not discriminate between species (H.172), and to ban the practice (not sport) of radio-collared hunting and chasing of of terrorized bear by hound dogs in Vermont (H.316).
