The problem animals included Bear No. 264, which found a home in rural McHenry, Md., where the owner kept homemade sausage in a freezer inside his house. The bear broke in three times before it was shot and killed.
There was also Bear No. 499, which climbed through the kitchen window into a weekend home near Deep Creek Lake and escaped with a bag of pretzels, a loaf of bread and a slice of angel food cake, Spiker said. That bear was scared off with rubber-coated buckshot but allowed to live.
"Ten years ago, if you saw a bear a summer, that was pretty good," said Oren Bender, a farmer near the town of Accident in Garrett County. "This summer, I don't know how many I've seen."
The bears have raided Bender's backyard bird feeder and wallowed in his oats. They have mashed large sections of his cornfields as they've eaten -- leaving ruined spots that look like the handiwork of a UFO.
"I like to see bear," Bender said. "But I don't like to see the results of it."
Because of this kind of complaint, state officials have been considering a bear hunt for years. Their aim is to slow the growth of the population and prevent them from establishing themselves into more eastern counties such as Frederick or Montgomery.
This year, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) gave his assent to a hunt in Garrett and part of Allegany. Hunts are set for Oct. 25 to 30 and Dec. 6 to 11.
Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania allow bear hunting, and all have expanded their hunts in recent years to handle a growing bear population.
But in Maryland, the idea of a hunt has struck a nerve.
"We believe that Maryland citizens are better than that," said Michael Markarian, president of the Fund for Animals, based in Silver Spring. "We don't believe that we have to kill animals, for them to bleed to death, just so we can have their hides in our living room."
For two years, his group and others have pushed for legislation to ban bear hunting, but none passed the General Assembly.
They won a symbolic victory when a legislative committee voted against the hunt last month. But under Maryland law, Ehrlich was free to ignore that vote -- and he did. Now the groups are considering a lawsuit.
The conflict has exposed a cultural divide in the state. On the animal rights side are many people from urban and suburban areas, who tend to see hunting from the animal's point of view.
On the other are the hunters -- about 4 percent of the population -- who are used to being left alone.
