New wildlife alliance to push for changes in DIF&W policy

AUGUSTA – Just three weeks after the electorate narrowly rejected a measure to reform bear hunting, those who want to see changes in the state’s approach to wildlife management have formed a new organization to take their cause to the State House.

“People want to see wildlife – living, breathing wildlife,” said Daryl DeJoy, the new group’s director, during a Monday press conference at the state Capitol. “Let’s protect wildlife for its own sake,” he said.

The group, the Wildlife Alliance of Maine, or WAM, includes members like DeJoy who have spent recent years opposing the state’s policy of controlling coyote populations by snaring the predators, as well as veterans of the bear referendum and founding members of the Maine Wolf Coalition and the Maine Animal Coalition.

Frustrated with recent battles in which the state lines up with groups like the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and the Maine Trappers Association, WAM’s primary goal is to reveal, and then eliminate, what its members see as a pro-hunting bias on wildlife issues in Maine lawmaking.

While the organization does not oppose hunting in general, its board sees a need for reform – changes that they say groups like SAM have blocked.

Most of the members of both the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife Advisory Council and the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife are not only hunters but members of SAM, and vote accordingly, DeJoy said.

WAM aspires to parity on both boards, arguing that more Mainers enjoy watching wildlife than hunting it, and that a wildlife management system designed wholly around serving a minority made up of hunters is undemocratic, according to DeJoy.

Members of the legislative committee for the 122nd Legislature will be determined by party leaders in January. The governor also is expected to appoint five new members to the citizen advisory council in the coming year.

George Smith, executive director of SAM, dismissed the conspiracy talk Monday.

“Their bills didn’t pass because they were bad bills,” Smith said. “It’s the same names, the same faces … I don’t see these people as major players.”

Members of the state’s major wildlife policymaking boards argue that their experiences hunting, fishing and trapping provide them with an understanding of the issues, not a bias. At various times, both boards have supported wildlife protection measures.

“They’re making every hunter and every trapper out to be cruel, and that’s not so,” Lance Wheaton, a member of the DIF&W advisory council from Forest Hill said Monday. “Just because you hunt and fish doesn’t mean you hate the species. We love them. That’s why we do it,” he said.

And the state already has a group representing those concerned with wildlife for wildlife’s sake – Maine Audubon, said Smith. SAM and Maine Audubon meet regularly to discuss wildlife issues, and have worked cooperatively on major projects to preserve wildlife habitat and provide funding for the research and protection of nongame species. The biggest priorities now on SAM’s agenda – securing more bond money for Land for Maine’s Future and ensuring that DIF&W receives general fund money in the state budget – coincide with Audubon’s goals, Smith said.

Before the recent budget crisis, state legislators had voted to provide 18 percent of DIF&W’s budget from the general fund, which is supported primarily by taxes.

Reinstating that funding so that DIF&W will be free of its oft-stated reliance on revenue from hunting and fishing licenses is among WAM’s major goals, as is finding creative sources of funding from the wildlife-watching industry that’s budding in Maine, DeJoy said.

“Wilderness ecotourism is the future,” he said. “There are millions of people coming to Maine [for the wildlife].”

Mark Latti, spokesman for DIF&W, looks forward to working with the new group, he said Monday.

“If they’re willing to help promote wildlife and fund this department, I think there’s a benefit to everybody,” he said.

The Wildlife Alliance of Maine will be based at 96 Harlow St. in Bangor. The group has a handful of members scattered across the state, and more than 60 others had already inquired about joining as information about the group leaked out in weeks leading up to Monday’s announcement, DeJoy said. WAM’s board of directors will include: John Glowa of South China, Linn Pulis of Hallowell, Cecil Gray of Bingham, Dena Winslow of Presque Isle, Susan Cockrell of Holden and Don LoPrieno of Bristol.

For more information, visit the WAM Web site at www.wildlifealliancemaine.org