MONTPELIER — A bipartisan push to overturn a law — passed in the closing hours of last year’s Legislature to save Pete the Moose — is under way in the House.
Members of the House Fish, Wildlife, and Water Resources Committee took their initial walk last week through a bill to ensure that wildlife remain a public resource and not “be reduced to private ownership.”
The bill stipulates that the state “shall have ownership, jurisdiction, and control of all the fish and wildlife of Vermont.”
In addition, the bill would repeal authority granted a year ago to the Agency of Agriculture to manage deer and moose held captive in Doug Nelson’s Irasburg preserve, home to Pete the Moose whose status over the last few years has reached celebrity heights.
Regulatory authority over the captive deer and moose would resort back to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The bill, which came out with 35 sponsors, finds that to prevent such diseases as chronic wasting disease (CWD) “white-tailed deer and moose should not be entrapped in facilities that contain domestic animals.”
According to Eric Nuse of Johnson, the executive director of Orion the Hunter’s Institute, the bill came out of meetings among legislators and sportsmen who were concerned over the status of wildlife in Vermont.
Nuse said Tuesday that the intent behind the bill is “to restore the public trust in the wildlife of Vermont.”
As the head of an institute concerned with education and hunting ethics, Nuse noted that while common law considers wildlife a public resource, there is nothing in statute that legally defines public ownership of wildlife.
“We really wanted to get it in statute,” he said.
As for moose and deer inside the enclosure, the bill proposes that final disposition wait on an agreement between the owner of the Irasburg preserve and the commissioner of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. A provision in the bill says that a hunt could take place on the preserve but Nelson would not be allowed to charge a fee.
That’s not cricket, according to Walt Driscoll, the Essex County representative on the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board.
“Doug has been feeding and taking care of them. Why can’t he charge to hunt them?” he said.
While Driscoll believes that bill circumvents the status of Pete the Moose, he agrees that legislative action is required to put wildlife on the books as a public resource.
“It is talked about in a lot of different places but it is not crystal clear,” he said.
Testimony on the bill is scheduled to begin Feb. 8.
