This commentary is by Katerina Brumer, a resident of Burlington.
Human mothers can relate to the physical exhaustion of nursing and tending to their young. But how often do we think about nonhuman animals and the challenges they face raising their young?
Being a wild animal is difficult and nature can be cruel, so why do some humans enjoy making their lives even harder?
Let’s look at the life of a mother bear. Bears give birth to helpless cubs in their winter dens and must nurse them despite not having eaten since November. By late spring, mother bears and their tiny cubs are just venturing out, looking for water sources and foraging for food, but natural food sources are hard to come by that time of year.
Bears have very little peace in Vermont, where for half of the year they are terrorized by hunting hounds. Starting on June 1, when bear cubs are still little brown balls of fluff, hounders will unleash packs of uncontrolled dogs into the woods to train them for the fall bear hunt.
During the summer, these frenzied (often very hungry) hounds will follow the scent of a bear family for hours over many miles. Until September, bears are terrorized, separated from their families, simply to train hounds to chase them.
Mother bears are not in good physical condition this time of year as they haven’t been able to put on the fat they need. But they will run as fast as possible and become separated from their terrified cubs, who will have been sent up a tree for safety, if possible.
Young cubs are not capable of outrunning a pack of hounds and they are lucky if they can find a tree to climb to escape the biting hounds. Some small cubs may still be learning how to climb trees and have not perfected this necessary skill. They may end up orphans and die from starvation or predation.
Mothers running from hounds in the summer heat become exhausted and can suffer from hyperthermia, which can be fatal. This practice not only stresses the bears, but the hunting dogs’ lives are also at risk. They can be injured by a protective mother bear or by countless threats to their safety as they recklessly run through woods, fields and across roads. From Sept. 1 through the end of November, the training is over, and the hunting begins.
The act of hounding — whether the target animal is bear, coyote, bobcat, raccoon — is the use of packs of powerful hunting dogs that are weaponized to chase animals to exhaustion, making them an easy target for the hunters. The victim is either forced to climb a tree for refuge, where it will ultimately be shot down by a human hunter who catches up with the hounds, or it will be cornered and attempt to fight off the dogs. Some bears won’t escape up trees and will take their chances on the ground, confronting the hounds.
Some animals, like coyotes, can’t climb trees and have no choice other than fighting the hounds on the ground in an attempt to defend themselves.
Hounds are dangerous and may threaten any other wild or domestic animals that they encounter. It is not uncommon for them to chase any target in sight, including moose calves, fawns, other small mammals, and ground-nesting birds.
As if the above reasons aren’t enough to oppose hounding, another concern is the lack of control of the dogs by their owners. Although they are sometimes tracked with GPS collars, the hunters are often over a mile away from their dogs and have no control over them. They cannot keep their hounds away from roads or stop them from entering private land or chasing someone’s horse, cat, or dog.
Hounds can legally trespass on any property in Vermont now. What ever happened to landowner rights? Apparently there are none where hunting dogs are concerned.
There is hope! H.323 would prohibit the hunting of bears and coyotes with dogs. Please write your representatives and senators today and ask them to support this vital piece of legislation.
