The reality is, just like any other method of harvest, baiting is a management tool wildlife biologists use to keep predator and prey species in balance with available habitat.
When viewed through a management lens, baiting is often a necessary tactic to ensure population levels don’ t exceed the carrying capacity of the habitat by keeping mortality rates in line with survival and reproduction rates.
Every species in every habitat has a tipping point. With too many animals of a certain species, favored and nutritional food sources become depleted and the overall population suffers through malnutrition, and possibly a slow death of starvation. This has an ecosystem-wide impact; trickledown destruction will ultimately hit other species in the habitat’ s circle of life.
Disease, as a primary affliction of overpopulation or secondary, opportunistic, ailment of weakened populations due to degrees of malnutrition often results as well.
Before either of those natural population controls become overwhelmingly corrective, however, animals will usually venture into the urban-wild interface in order to survive on the by-products of human civilization – flower beds and other landscaping, garbage and pets.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and when populations surpass the carrying capacity of the habitat, malnutrition / starvation, disease and conflict with humans result as animals are forced to either scrounge for survival in an out-of-balance ecosystem or leave it and expand their range into unnatural environments.
This holds true for almost all species due to today’ s modern civilization and fragmented habitat. And keeping predator and prey species in balance with each other and the habitat is the juggling act wildlife biologists must maintain for the overall health of every species, the ecosystem and humans, as well.
Baiting is a management tool biologists can employ to help keep this balance. Whether the bait is used for apex predators, such as black bears, which have large territories and no set pattern of movement, or for prey species such as deer, whose populations can quickly exceed habitat limits given the right conditions, increased success rates are often the result.
However, increased success rates don’ t equate to a slam-dunk, sure-kill hunt. The wild animal being pursued retains all its senses: vision, hearing
Sacrificing the Bait Hunter
Animal-rights activists aren’ t the only ones who view the use of bait as an unfair advantage employed by“ slob” hunters. Unfortunately, many hunters wrongfully take this view, too.
Whether fellow sportsmen fall for one of the myths surrounding bait hunting or choose to condemn them for another reason, the ostracizing, bad mouthing and splintering of ranks creates a susceptibility that endangers all sportsmen.
Animal-rights organizations prey upon the divisions and attitudes within the hunting and fishing world.
Sportsmen must stick together, for the slippery slope of sacrificing the use of bait can lead to the targeting of the use of hounds, cover scents or other methods and accessories. Taken to the extreme, the precedent of bait as an unfair advantage could easily be applied to fishing or food plots( read:“ The Blurry Line” on page 7).
When we sacrifice one segment of our hunting society, every segment of our hunting society is sacrificed. It’ s only a matter of time before the animal-rights movement will focus on the segment you’ re passionate about.
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SPORTSMEN’ S MONTHLY July | August 2017