Federal lands to ban bear baiting, citing wildlife safety and property damage
H.R. 4422 — Don’t Feed the Bears Act of 2025 · Filed by Shri Thanedar (D-MI) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 15, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires federal land agencies to adopt and enforce regulations prohibiting hunters from intentionally feeding bears ("bear baiting") on federal public lands. It directs the Interior Secretary to enforce existing anti-baiting rules on National Park System and wildlife refuge lands, and requires the Interior and Agriculture Secretaries to issue new regulations banning bear baiting on Bureau of Land Management and National Forest System lands within one year, with narrow exceptions for bear welfare, public safety, or authorized research.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a straightforward regulatory prohibition on a specific hunting practice (bear baiting) on federal lands, justified by wildlife science and public safety. It is not a tax measure, appropriation, or industry carve-out—it is a conservation and safety regulation.
What the text implies
- The bill may reduce hunting opportunities in states where bear baiting is currently permitted, potentially affecting hunting culture and local economies dependent on bear-hunting tourism, though alternative hunting methods remain available.
- Enforcement of the bear-baiting prohibition may require additional federal land management resources for monitoring and compliance, with costs borne by agency budgets.
- The one-year deadline for regulation adoption by Interior and Agriculture may create implementation challenges if agencies lack sufficient rulemaking capacity or face legal challenges from hunting interests.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill restricts a hunting practice that wildlife science shows increases dangerous human-bear encounters, property damage, and bear deaths. Citizens benefit from reduced conflict with wildlife, lower property damage costs, and safer public lands access. The restriction applies only to a specific hunting method, not to bear hunting itself.
Named in the bill
U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Federal public lands
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Democrats.
- Jul 15, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 15, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Agriculture and House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $0 in lobbying spend. A filing names 12 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Shri Thanedar, the sponsor, reported $84,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Animal Wellness Action — $0 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,129 characters) on Aug 18, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal lands to ban bear baiting, citing wildlife safety and property damage” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr4422 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.