Have You Ever Heard of Bear Baying or Baiting?

In my personal email today I received a newsletter notice from the South Carolina's Information Highway or SCIWAY. This newsletter brings me all types of information about what might be happening in the state. As part of this email there was also a plea from the Humane Society of the United States.

It appears that the state of South Carolina allows something that is called bear baying or sometimes called bear baiting. South Carolina is the only state in the union that allows this. I had never heard of this practice before. I have included a link to a video so that you can see what it is. Although technically this practice could be prosecuted for animal cruelty, there has never been a case brought against a single person in the state.

Apparently it is used in the guise of training hunting dogs to hunt bears. In truth it is used as more of a spectator event. In the video from the Humane Society you will see that they take a bear and chain it up. Dogs are then set on the bear to force it to stand up on its hind legs. In many cases the bear has claws, and some or all of its teeth removed so that no harm comes to the dogs.

It seems that those who would promote animal fighting have found a loophole that doesn't make this type of activity illegal. The law in South Carolina allows this because it's supposedly a way to safely train the dogs.

The Humane Society is trying to bring awareness to this so that the laws can be changed to outlaw this practice. No other state in the United States allows this. The video was shot using a hidden video camera. The dogs are set on the bear until it rises up on its hind legs. Once the bear stands the dogs are pulled off and another team of dogs is introduced. The point of the whole exercise is to see which team of dogs can get the bear to stand the quickest.

If this is just a case of training hunting dogs, why is it banned in all other states? If you are a resident of South Carolina the Humane Society is asking that you contact your state representative to voice your concern and request that legislation be supported to ban this.

South Carolina has a long history of people who hold different types of events that pit animals against one another.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/bear-baying-humane-societ_n_691155.html