Editor’s note: This commentary is by Mike Covey, who is executive director of Vermont Traditions Coalition.
[T]he North American Model of Wildlife Conservation has set the standard for maintaining healthy wildlife populations upon the landscape by providing public access to public resources, and providing engaging recreational opportunities to connect folks with the landscape. A few years ago I was asked how I thought we could get more people interested in conserving land and water, and my answer was simple.
Teach them to hunt, fish, and trap. Give people an activity which intimately connects them to these resources, and then give them a place to do it.
Hiking, birdwatching, and photography are great, and I enjoy them all, but hunting is immersive to a degree which simply cannot be replicated by less demanding interactions. This very fact has driven the success of the North American Model. Hunters, trappers, and anglers, have worked hand-in-hand with state and federal wildlife agencies to restore and maintain healthy wildlife populations for over a century.
Since 2015, there has been an aggressive, vitriolic effort to reduce opportunities for hunting and trapping by some misguided folks who refuse to acknowledge the benefits of having an engaged and interpersonal relationship with our wild resources. The same few folks keep writing about the need to ban hunting and trapping and upend the North American Model by populating regulatory boards with people who are opposed to the very act they propose to regulate. They have jumped the shark at this point. I avoid lists and bullet points as they’re impersonal, but in the interest of brevity I will succumb to their use. The following is a list of recent anti-hunting narratives and the facts which dispense with them.
Fiction: Wildlife belongs to all of us, and animals harvested are “stolen” from the public.
Fact: Wildlife belongs to all of us, and that includes hunters, trappers, and anglers. With healthy populations on the landscape there is room for everyone to enjoy our wildlife as they see fit. That includes lawful harvest for those of us who engage in it.
Fiction: Hunters/trappers/houndsmen are minority segments of society and therefore their lifestyle and activities are irrelevant.Â
Fact: I’m going to editorialize here a bit. After over four years of hearing this diatribe in various forms, it continues to disgust me. If you insert any other ethnic, social, or cultural group into that sentence, how does it read? We don’t accept that type of derogatory dismissal directed at our immigrant communities, our LGBT community, or our developmentally disabled community; we must not accept it when directed at the sporting community. If anti-hunting activists want to have a discussion that’s fine, but let’s expect better of their leadership than this.
Fiction: The Fish and Wildlife Board/Department only care about catering to the sporting community.
Fact: The Fish and Wildlife Board/Department are guided by established science and best management practices. There is no carte blanche rubber stamping, but rather an involved process with many opportunities for input from the whole of the public as well as a trip to the Legislature along the way. Some recent trapping changes took almost two years to complete. The process involved written public input as well as multiple board discussions, public hearings, and legislative hearings.
Fiction: Coyote hunting needs to be reduced.
Fact: All parties agree that the current management practices for coyotes are not a negative population driver. This is not about helping coyotes, it’s simply about removing opportunity. Without getting too far into the weeds on this one, availability of food is the limiting factor for coyotes. All the current management protocols do is provide a metering effect. Additionally, when Connecticut instated a closed season they found a steep increase in coyote-human conflicts.
Fiction: The Fish and Wildlife Board needs anti-hunting representation.
Fact: It would be inappropriate. The board has no authority to determine <em>if</em> we may hunt, trap, or fish. It may only determine <em>how</em> we may hunt, trap, and fish. Whatever your passion, ask yourself this, “Should people with a false view of a practice, an agenda against it, and no practical knowledge of it be placed in a regulatory capacity?” For me the answer is a resounding no. Neighboring New Hampshire requires potential board members to have a sporting license, food for thought.
Fiction: Your tax money pays to support these awful human beings who utilize wildlife.
Fact: About a quarter of the Fish and Wildlife Department budget comes from the general fund, about one third comes from sporting license sales, another one third comes from excise taxes on sporting equipment (taxes supported and paid by hunters, trappers, anglers, and recreational shooters), and the remainder comes from smaller sources such as the habitat stamp (most often purchased at the same time as a sporting license). Keeping in mind that this budget funds all operating expenses, non-game and endangered species work, habitat work, and land acquisition; the sporting community is clearly paying its fair share.
The sporting community has demonstrably been the single-payer system for the health care of our nations wildlife for well over a century at this point. The trapping community alone has spent over $41 million in the last three decades to test the traps they use for the sake of ensuring the welfare of captured animals. Rather than disparaging those who are rolling up their sleeves and doing real work to benefit wildlife, perhaps these anti-hunting groups could stop spending money on smear campaigns, start raising some funds to support some of the department’s initiatives, and let go of the outright bigotry they so desperately cling to.