H.R. 4422: Don’t Feed the Bears Act of 2025

The bill titled "Don’t Feed the Bears Act of 2025" aims to prohibit the intentional feeding of bears on Federal public lands. This is specifically intended to end a practice known as "bear baiting," where hunters use food to attract bears for hunting purposes. The bill includes several key components:

Findings

The bill outlines various findings that support the need for this legislation:

• Federal land management agencies currently discourage feeding bears but still allow baiting by licensed hunters in states where it is permitted.
• Bait stations can include large amounts of human-scented foods, which can make bears less wary of humans and more likely to approach them or seek food from human sources.
• This can lead to increased bear populations and higher rates of human-bear interactions, causing safety issues and property damage.
• Prohibiting the feeding of bears in national parks has previously led to a decrease in bear-human encounters.
• Many states that allow bear hunting already ban baiting.
• Feeding or baiting bears is inconsistent with efforts to promote safety on public lands.

Prohibitions and Enforcement

The act lays out multiple provisions related to prohibiting and enforcing regulations against bear feeding:

• The Secretary of the Interior will enforce existing regulations that prohibit feeding wildlife in national parks and wildlife refuges, specifically targeting bear baiting.
• The Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture will adopt new regulations to prohibit bear feeding in other federal lands managed by agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the National Forest Service.
• These new regulations must be finalized within one year of the bill's enactment.

Exceptions

The regulations will include exceptions for extraordinary circumstances. In such cases, feeding bears may be allowed for their welfare, public safety, or for authorized wildlife research, as determined by the relevant agency heads.

Impacts

Overall, the bill seeks to provide a more consistent set of rules regarding the feeding of bears across federal lands, emphasizing wildlife safety and human safety by reducing the opportunities for dangerous interactions between bears and humans.

Relevant Companies

• None found