|
 Bears find sweets irresistible during the autumn hunting season
and eat voraciously to build fat stores for winter hibernation, said
Kent Gustafson, the Wildlife Program Supervisor for the state's fish
and game department.
"Given the circumstances, we certainly don't want to see something
like this happen again," Gustafson said. "I expect we will have a
proposal to deal with this sometime next month."
Four black bears, including two cubs, were found dead in September
within 50 feet of where a hunter placed nearly 100 pounds of
chocolate and doughnuts as bait, wildlife officials said. An autopsy
conducted by the University of New Hampshire showed the bears had
died of an overdose of theobromine, a naturally occurring toxic
ingredient in chocolate.
 Gustafson said the deaths were the first of their kind reported in
New Hampshire, but followed similar incidents with black bears and
raccoons in Michigan.
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He said the proposal put forward by the department could range from
banning any chocolate in bear bait, to allowing it only in limited
quantities, like in doughnuts or chocolate sprinkles on other
sweets.
Hunters killed 784 bears in New Hampshire during the 2014 hunting
season, the vast majority by using bait, and most of the rest using
hounds to track down the animals. New Hampshire has about 4,800
black bears, officials estimate.
(Reporting by Richard Valdmanis)
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