Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission tackles baiting issue

Following three years of study and polarizing discussion, the hot topic of using bait for hunting deer and elk will be tackled by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday.

Proponents say baiting is a favored way to lure game for bowhunters as well as for youth, seniors and disabled hunters using firearms.

Opponents say it violates standards of fair chase.

Washington and Oregon are the only Western states that allow the use of bait for deer and elk.

Federal migratory bird hunting rules have prohibited baiting for decades because of the potential impacts to bird and duck populations and the conflicts among hunters in the field.

Trophies taken with the aid of bait are eligible for entry in the Boone and Crockett Club’s big-game record books if the practice is legal in the state where the trophy was taken.

Idaho allows baiting for bear hunting but prohibits baiting for deer and elk.

Washington voters approved a 1996 initiative banning bait for bear hunting but still has no restriction on baiting deer and elk.

Hunters who frown on baiting say Washington is vulnerable to more encompassing restrictions should another initiative be launched.

A random telephone survey of deer hunters conducted in 2014 by the state Fish and Wildlife Department found 59 percent opposed or strongly opposed baiting for deer while 21 percent supported or strongly supported baiting. Eleven percent were neutral and 9 percent “didn’t know.”

Elk hunters had even stronger feelings with 68 percent of those polled either opposed or strongly opposed baiting for elk. Only 14 percent of elk hunters supported using bait to hunt elk. Eleven percent were neutral and 8 percent didn’t know.

A large majority of the hunters who have emailed or testified on the topic at the March commission meeting in Moses Lake favored unrestricted use of bait for deer and elk.

“I personally don’t see much difference between hunting over an apple tree or agricultural field versus hunting over a bale of alfalfa,” said Brandon Enevold, a bowhunter from Spokane Valley.

“It’s all deer food. One just happened to be planted by someone months or years earlier, rather than set in place days or weeks in advance.”

Enevold said baiting is a useful in managing deer that tend to overpopulate near residential areas. An archer can use bait to lure deer to the one parcel where he can get permission to hunt in a swath of 10-acre ranchettes, he said.

Members of the commission’s Big Game Committee have explored the baiting issue and will make a recommendation on Friday before the vote.

Commissioner Jay Kehne of Omak is on the panel’s Big Game Committee that’s been looking into the baiting issue for two years.

“We’ve had meetings and pored over something like 400 individual comments,” he said.

Like all of the committee members, Kehne praises the quality and passion in the comments while emphasizing the issue is “very divided.”

The committee will make a recommendation on prohibiting baiting, limiting the quantity of bait that can be used or keeping the status quo.

“There’s a lot of opposition in Okanogan County because of the extreme amount of bait used to bring in mule deer,” Kehne said, noting that surplus apples are readily available in the orchard country.

Some hunters say private land guiding operations are interrupting mule deer migration patterns with large amount of bait. Use of bait on winter ranges is especially unacceptable to opponents.

“The random surveys of deer and elk hunters carry quite a bit of weight with me,” Kehne said, noting that the opinion of the public at large is a consideration, too.

“I’ll look for compromise if possible.”

No middle ground is being sought by Big Game Committee member, hunter and staunch baiting defender Jay Holzmiller of Anatone.

“Baiting has been put down as unethical and even immoral,” he said. “But baiting gives a trophy hunter a better chance to size up and know what he’s shooting. In places like Saskatchewan where I’ve hunted, you’re not going to get a big buck out of the brush for an open shot without bait.”

Holzmiller told the crowd testifying at the Moses Lake commission meeting that baiting is well-accepted for hunting exotics on leases in Texas.

“Being unlike Texas is one of the best reasons I can think of to oppose baiting,” said one hunter who asked to remain unidentified.

Commissioner and master birder Kim Thorburn of Spokane said she sees the two sides of the bait-hunting issue.

But being a former Spokane Regional Health District director, she would like to know more about the role baiting could play in spreading disease and attracting big-game into more danger with predators and vehicle collisions.

“If the hoof disease infecting elk in Western Washington is related to soil bacteria issue, it’s plausible it could be further spread by concentrating elk at bait.”

Washington Fish and Wildlife department biologists, in their proposals package, say that “although some potential exists, the Department has no data at this time to suggest that the practice of baiting for deer and elk hunting has a negative population or natural resource effect.”

Baiting proponents go on to say there’s no proven biological reason to restrict baiting. However, research is thin on questions such as the relationship of baiting and increased predation.

“We know it’s a factor,” said John Andrews, a hunter and retired Fish and Wildlife Department regional wildlife manager.

The department shut down a long-running bighorn sheep feeding station at Sullivan Lake in 2003 when a mountain lion was found sleeping off a wild sheep meal in the feed shed.

Fair chase is the paramount issue with baiting, Andrews said.

“That’s the issue that led eight other western states to prohibit baiting and it’s the thread that’s brought it to the table in Washington,” he said.

“The (Fish and Wildlife) Department has a policy that recommends not feeding big game because of proven detrimental impacts in most cases, yet the department is taking neutral position on baiting. That’s inconsistent.”

The popularity of using bait for hunting has increased significantly in recent years, Andrews said.

“The archers were not quiet about their success. Now more firearms hunters are using bait.”

Cable TV hunting shows glorify baiting for bringing game into shooting range for the benefit of the camera.

“Baiting can change natural deer movements,” Andrews said. “That impacts the fair chase hunter who watches a year of scouting and patterning go up in smoke in two weeks because somebody starts baiting.”

Some hunters argue that baiting, and the higher odds of success, are useful in recruiting new hunters into the sport.

Others question the emphasis on filling a tag, especially for a first-time hunter.

“With all the technology and improved equipment and special seasons we’re already pushing the upper limits of harvesting in some areas,” Andrews said.

“Baiting is creating a new culture of hunters who think that if they don’t get deer the first day out over bait the hunt isn’t a success. People want it now, or they want to look over a lot of bucks. Either way, they want instant gratification.

“That’s not good for deer, and it’s not good for the hunting tradition.

“I feel bad for the kid that goes out with his uncle and gets a buck the first time out hunting over bait. That’s the only way that kid knows how to hunt. You learn something by not being immediately successful.”