Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times  Robbie Grumbles, a carpenter from Travelers Rest, feeds honey to one of three bears he has raised. He uses them to train hunters and dogs.  “It’s one of the toughest, most exhausting sports there is,” said Roy Stiles, 64, of Travelers Rest, a longtime hunter and retired college professor. “You can track a bear for 15 miles before you tree it and shoot it — and then you still have to drag it out of the woods.”  But this may be the last year that hunters anywhere in the country can prepare their dogs for these grueling outings by using an obscure practice called bear baying that dates back at least to the 1800s. Under criticism from animal rights groups, South Carolina is debating a legal ban on the practice of restraining a captive black bear while hunting dogs surround it and bark feverishly. The training, still popular in rural areas of this state, is designed to replicate the conditions of a wild bear encounter and to familiarize dogs with the animal’s behavior.  “This is uncivilized and barbaric to a totally defenseless bear,” said Joel Lourie, a Democratic state senator who said he planned to introduce a ban on the activity when the State Legislature reconvenes in January.  Baying — so called because of the dogs’ howling at the bear — is protected by a loophole in South Carolina law. No other states allow it, according to animal rights experts.  The practice, which does not involve shooting bears, came under widespread public criticism in recent weeks after the Humane Society of the United States released hidden-camera footage of four events at which dogs appear to have bitten bears. The videos show grainy images of dogs snarling and lunging at bears tethered on short leashes in metal cages, as dozens of people watch.  In South Carolina, there are 21 bears kept privately in captivity, usually in backyard cages, as pets or tourist spectacles, the state Department of Natural Resources says. But only a few of those are believed to be involved in bear baying.  More than 20 states allow bear hunting, but all the others and most industrialized countries have outlawed baying, animal rights groups say. England banned the practice in 1835, and New York became the first state to ban it, in 1856.  “It’s one of those awful micro-cultures of animal cruelty,” said Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society. “There are some people who think this is useful in training their bear-hunting dogs. But it’s basically blood-sport entertainment.”  In recent years, animal rights groups have increasingly gone after niche sports and some hunting-training practices. Under pressure from the Humane Society, Florida recently banned “fox penning” (trapping foxes for dog-training exercises), Alabama outlawed “canned hunts” (keeping animals confined to make hunting them easier), and Pennsylvania is debating a ban on “pigeon shooting” (propelling the birds from mechanical launchers for target practice).  But in South Carolina, which had a record bear hunting season last year, with 92 bears killed, baying has supporters among some lawmakers and among bear owners who say they are vilified and misunderstood.  Robbie Grumbles, 62, a carpenter from Travelers Rest, a mountainous town of 4,000 people, owns three black bears as pets, one of which was used in a baying session this year that the Humane Society filmed. He said that baying was an infrequent part of his bears’ lives — they are used in three or four events a year — and that the training ensures that dogs are able to avoid being mauled by bears.  Mr. Grumbles, whom friends call the Bear Man, keeps his bears in cages on his 14-acre property. He nursed them as cubs on baby bottles in his living room. He feeds them dog food and powdered-sugar donuts — and, as dessert, hard candy dispensed directly from his own lips. The notion that he would ever allow his bears to be physically or emotionally harmed, he said, is absurd.  “This has all gotten political,” he said. “The Humane Society has got millions of dollars, and I’ve got maybe 35 cents.”  Perhaps the greatest disagreement about baying involves its rules. The Humane Society says bears are declawed and defanged, which owners deny. The animal rights group says the goal of the activity is to force a bear onto its hind legs, making it easier to shoot in the stomach, but hunters say that stance would actually make a bear harder to kill. Opponents say dogs regularly bite the bears, but hunters say the videos show only the most aggressive dogs, many of which were banned from future baying events.  Cruel or not, bear baying is going to be phased out, even without a ban, said State Representative David R. Hiott, a Republican from Pickens County, one of three counties that allow bear hunting each October. In 2005, the state stopped allowing residents to capture or breed new bears in captivity. So when these 20 bears die off, in perhaps 30 years, no more baying will be possible, he said.  But the public has been outraged. In newspaper editorials and radio call-in shows, residents across South Carolina have argued that baying reinforces a negative perception about a state that should be praised for its natural resources and abundant wildlife.  South Carolina has grappled with other controversial animal practices. In 2006, after the state’s agriculture commissioner pleaded guilty to taking a bribe to protect a cockfighting ring, Gov. Mark Sanford approved legislation increasing penalties for animal blood sports. The state also recently banned “hog dogging,” the practice of releasing a pack of dogs on a wild boar.  The backlash against baying has been unnerving for Mr. Grumbles, the bear owner, who has received phone calls from people “who say I should get five years in prison” or compare him to Michael Vick, the football player convicted of running a dog-fighting ring. The problem is more than political, he said, it is cultural.  “People raised on the concrete don’t understand people raised on the dirt,” he said. “I just don’t know how to explain it to them.”
South Carolina, the last state to allow it, may soon bow to critics of a tradition called bear baying.