Call it 'bear baying' or 'bear baiting,' it's only legal in South Carolina, and maybe not for long

South Carolina is the only state that allows bear baying or bear baiting, a controversial training practice for bear hunting, and a push from national animal-rights groups and state lawmakers to outlaw the practice is highlighting a rural-urban divide. "South Carolina is debating a legal ban on the practice of restraining a captive black bear while hunting dogs surround it and bark feverishly," Robbie Brown of The New York Times reports. "The training, still popular in rural areas of this state, is designed to replicate the conditions of a wild bear encounter and to familiarize dogs with the animal’s behavior." The Humane Society of the Unites States recently released hidden-camera footage of four baying events where dogs appeared to bite a captive bear.

"This is uncivilized and barbaric to a totally defenseless bear," Joel Lourie, a Democratic state senator, told Brown. He plans to introduce a ban on the activity when the Legislature reconvenes in January. But to bear owner Robbie Grumbles, who owned one of the bears in the HSUS video, the notion he would allow his bears to be harmed is absurd. Grumbles, who lives in Travelers Rest, population about 5,000, said bears only participate in three or four baying events a year. "This has all gotten political," he told Brown. "The Humane Society has got millions of dollars, and I’ve got maybe 35 cents." (Times photo: Grumbles feeds one of his bears honey.)

"The Humane Society says bears are declawed and defanged, which owners deny," Brown writes. "The animal rights group says the goal of the activity is to force a bear onto its hind legs, making it easier to shoot in the stomach, but hunters say that stance would actually make a bear harder to kill." Even without a ban, bear baying is likely to fade away, since the state has banned capture or captive breeding of bears. For Grumbles, the controversy is an example of urban people not understanding rural life. "People raised on the concrete don’t understand people raised on the dirt," he told Brown. "I just don’t know how to explain it to them." (Read more)