To the editor:
Regarding Paul Meade’s recent letter calling efforts to ban certain bear-hunting methods deceptive; I strongly disagree. The HSUS does not make judgments on people of any state. They aren’t in the business of calling any state research ignorant or easily manipulated. The practice of killing and trapping animals is cruelty no matter what state is involved. It is cowardly to even suggest that the HSUS has created or exploited this problem. You have created it yourselves.
From what I’ve seen in this town, there is a lot of domestic animal cruelty. I can’t say all Maine people are compassionate. If they were, there wouldn’t be shelters full of abused, neglected and starved animals; dogs left to starve and be eaten up by fleas, kittens found frozen to death, etc., etc.
This whole thing has nothing to do with a family shooting a deer for food. It is about baiting and trapping animals — cruelty in the most grisly form.
Our state needs to be touched more by outside influence. We’re years behind the times. This isn’t the 1800s and you don’t need to trap fur for trade. Don’t ever underestimate the power of the Humane Society of the United States and their power to fight animal cruelty.
Linda Dunn
Houlton
