Editor’s note: This commentary is by Holly Tippett, who is co-founder and board member of POW (Protect Our Wildlife).
“With great power comes great responsibility,” and unfortunately, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Louis Porter is using his power to irresponsibly push forth an agenda that is not rooted in facts. His latest commentary is an effort to discredit the work of our all-volunteer, grassroots, nonprofit organization that opposes trapping and the wanton waste killing of wildlife. The great thing about Protect Our Wildlife, unlike some other wildlife groups that Porter works with, is that we receive no grant funding from the Fish & Wildlife Department. This allows us to ask the tough questions and challenge bad policy, which we’ve done on everything from coyote killing contests to extending otter trapping season.
Porter accused Protect Our Wildlife of not seeking common ground, which is interesting. Whether the topic is banning crow or coyote killing contests, regulating the rogue business of nuisance wildlife trapping, and everything in between, Porter has remained unwilling to reach across the aisle. He wouldn’t even support mandatory reporting by trappers if they trap someone’s dog or cat. Many of the “conservation partners” that the commissioner refers to as working cooperatively with the department receive grant funding from F&W, a fact that has the potential to stifle dissenting opinions. And these groups’ missions are largely aligned with the department’s work. POW cares about the welfare of the individual animal. What the commissioner and the board have demonstrated as steadfast supporters of trapping is that animal welfare is not at the top of their agendas.
There are accusations about POW fostering a “polarized” atmosphere, which is interesting since both a department staff employee and the Fish & Wildlife Board chair (who’s also a trapper) tried to get on our email list by giving us fake names back in 2015 when we first started. Talk about setting the stage for distrust and polarization. In public records documents we read that the commissioner was instructing his staff on how to refute POW’s “lies” at an upcoming public hearing. None of this fosters collaboration.
What is perhaps the most willfully misleading behavior by the commissioner is routinely claiming that POW is anti-hunting. POW’s president has personally refuted that in committee hearings at the Statehouse and has gone on record stating that our organization does not oppose sustenance hunting. We take issue with coyote killing contests and other egregious acts that should not even be in the category of hunting. The commissioner also refers to vitriolic Facebook comments, when in fact we have no control over what someone from another country might post on our page, which we monitor to the best of our ability as volunteers. When inappropriate posts are discovered we remove them. We wish he’d be more interested in trappers who recently posted on social media that they wanted to harass POW concert attendees at a family-friendly benefit concert. Yet we’re the extremists?
In reference to the fox petition that POW supported, the commissioner claimed that he makes policy decisions based on sound science. He stated that Vermont has a “very low level of fox harvest,” but he cannot say this with any assurance, since the department has little to no data because trappers were never required to submit reports and hunters are still not required to do so. A similar scenario occurred when Porter supported the extension to otter trapping season and assured the public that less than 10 otters would be killed if the season were extended into March. That turned out to be quite wrong – in fact, double that amount was killed, and if not for POW, Porter and company would remain unchallenged. You can read more about that here.
POW has never denied that the department does good work and, in fact, POW has acknowledged this on a number of occasions. That said, the commissioner’s recitation of the department’s many duties omits the fact that the department also works hard to promote the extremely inhumane practice of trapping. POW seeks to incorporate animal welfare considerations into the department and board’s decision-making processes, hence the focus on trapping.
We are very comfortable in our role as a watchdog group and the lead organization in Vermont working to ban leghold trapping. We don’t expect Commissioner Porter to appreciate our work, but we do expect him not to mislead the general public that he is obliged to represent.
