AUGUSTA -- The Maine House of Representatives gave initial approval Wednesday to a bill that would allow a new game-hunting preserve to open in Piscataquis County.

The bill, L.D. 316, was also amended by the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee to allow game preserves currently in operation to expand the variety of animals they offer for hunting.

Many of the supporters said Piscataquis County needs the economic development that would come with a new hunting preserve.

"It's a very poor county," said House Minority Leader Josh Tardy, R-Newport. "Any type of economic development would be a positive development."

On the other side, opponents said they don't consider it true hunting.

Rep. Wendy Pieh, D-Bremen, said current state law that allows 11 existing preserves is sufficient.

"The idea of any more of these is neither good for the economy, nor is it in the character of what I think of as Maine," she said.

The House turned down a motion, 106-39, to reject the bill and instead moved on to pass, without a roll call, a motion to approve the measure.

The bill needs a second reading in the House before it can go to the Senate.

Rep. John Tuttle, D-Sanford, sponsored the bill on behalf of Jayson Allain, a former constituent who moved to Dover-Foxcroft.

Allain has said he wants to open a new preserve on 400 acres. He needs state approval to open a new hunting area because the Legislature voted in 2000 to cap the number of preserves.

Today, seven of the 11 continue to be active, but the law does not allow new preserves to be opened.

The active facilities are in Aurora, Newport, Oxbow, Anson, Jefferson, Hodgdon and Dixmont. The preserves are allowed to offer deer, elk, boar and bison hunts.

While much of the debate focused on economic development, some of it concerned the ethics of hunting and whether the fenced-in preserves are consistent with the tradition of hunting in Maine.

Rep. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, said he believes they are. "I can't see the difference between this and raising fish in a hatchery and putting them in a pond and catching them," he said.

Rep. Lance Harvell, R-Farmington, said people have been hunting animals for 6,000 years. "If you take a chicken out of a coop and lop its head off, that's canned hunting," he said.

Other supporters said it's not fair to call the practice "canned hunting" -- a term coined by editorial cartoonists who depicted the practice as shooting fish in a barrel, said Rep. Nancy Smith, D-Monmouth.

Smith said the preserves are large -- they must be at least 50 acres -- and that it's not easy to shoot the animals.

She responded to people who said it doesn't fit the character of Maine by saying that she doesn't think a large water park in southern Maine fits with the state's character, either.

"The line of thought I use is: Just because I don't do it doesn't make it wrong," she said.

However, Rep. Charles Harlow, D-Portland, and a former Maine guide, compared it to shooting animals on farms.

"This is not the tradition of hunting that I remember or I want to support," he said.

Susan Cover -- 620-7015

scover@centralmaine.com