Hunters are people, too

In his Op-Ed piece, “The winds of change are blowing for IF&W” (BDN, June 18), John Glowa, a spokesman for the Wildlife Alliance of Maine (WAM), asserts that Maine’s fish and wildlife management system is “corrupt.” He argues that Maine Department for Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s management policy is driven solely by politics, not science or biology. He attempts to support his theory with a series of distortions, half-truths and unfounded “facts.”

How ironic that his analysis conveniently overlooks the fact that it was his organization, WAM, that sought through its bear referendum a few years ago to force Maine wildlife management policy out of science and into the political arena.

What should not go unaddressed is Glowa’s use of a tiresome and subtle gambit that his organization continually relies upon in its anti-hunting rhetoric: pitting “consumptive users” (hunters and anglers) against nonconsumptive users (nonhunters and nonanglers). This is an effective and convenient political polarization that reflects the perspective of a black and white world that bears little resemblance to the real world.

In Maine, as in so many other states, it is the “consumptive users” (the hunters) who are being relied upon by professional wildlife managers to control and regulate wildlife populations. Nationwide last year in deer-vehicle crashes, there were 100 deaths and 10,000 injuries. Wisconsin had in one year 48,803 deer-vehicle crashes. Coyotes have become a problem in urban areas threatening children and pets. This month in Maine, moose-car collisions have left an increasing number of our citizens dead or injured.

In my experience, most people who hunt and fish are as much dedicated wildlife watchers as nonhunters. In other words, consumptive users are also nonconsumptive users. But as we all know, words are the weapons that will decide the outcome of the culture war that has Maine in its grip. “Consumption” has become a dividing, pejorative word in our guilt-ridden society and the Wildlife Alliance of Maine, and other similar organizations bent on ridding Maine of its hunting heritage, can be expected to exploit its usefulness.

V. Paul Reynolds

Hampden