This commentary is by Walter Medwid, a resident of Derby.
As anyone would expect, the heads of various state agencies have credentials, experience and education to serve in their roles. For example, the head of the Department of Health is a medical doctor, the head of the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation is a professional, certified forester, and the head of the Department of Public Safety is a law enforcement professional.
Their various credentials ensure that Vermonters are served from a knowledge-based background that leads to competent, professional decision-making. We need only to look at the role Health Commissioner Mark Levine is playing in this pandemic to affirm that it matters who is driving the bus.
There is one notable exception to that approach of functional governance. Gov. Scott has now made two appointments for the commissioner’s role at the Fish & Wildlife Department that defy the credentialed standard applied universally elsewhere in Vermont’s government. Neither had the background that other department heads bring to the table.
The oddity of this exception to the rule was made abundantly clear in recent testimony by the new commissioner before a House committee seeking to establish a law that bans the killing of wildlife for the sake of killing (not for food or fur, for example).
To be generous, the testimony was not a home run, maybe not a base hit. The “highlight” was the commissioner’s proposed amendment to the bill allowing the state’s wildlife to be used as “fertilizer” as a legitimate and legal use.
His stunning comment seemed to hang in the air of the hearing room. The amendment not only violated sensibilities, it violated the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. No wildlife professional worth their salt would even think of such an absurd standard, but there it was.
His other emotional comments about coyotes dug the hole deeper. But to focus on the commissioner’s head-scratching comments gives a pass to the governor for making a staffing decision that reeks of politics at the expense of the frontline staff at the department, its mission and all Vermonters who treasure the value wildlife brings to their lives. Vermonters were thrown under the bus by his decision.
Gov. Scott knows firsthand that leaders in the wildlife profession have called for the institutional reform of fish and wildlife agencies. He also knows that the professional group representing the interests of state fish and wildlife agencies has called for the “transformation of agency culture, operation and structures” and he knows too that Vermonter polls demonstrate wide public support for change.
We now know that even the majority of staff at the department feel management is not doing enough to address change. And certainly the growing number of legislative initiatives to get Vermont’s wildlife governance train back on the tracks and into the 21st century should be telling.
The chorus of voices calling for change has never been louder and yet we are left with the commissioner’s call for the use of wildlife as fertilizer. The idea boggles the mind.
Avoiding the hiring of a wildlife or related professional to lead the department (consistent with how other departments are staffed) relegates Fish & Wildlife to second-class status. It traps Fish & Wildlife into a 20th-century model at a time when the 21st century brings nearly a thousand Vermont species to being designated as species of greatest conservation need.
To top that off, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies has declared that the nation is in a wildlife crisis. We need all hands on deck.
There is a simple fix. In this legislative session, the leaders in the House and Senate natural resource committees can work together to add into Title 10 statutes basic qualifications for the head of Fish & Wildlife. The governor gets to choose who serves; however, the candidates must demonstrate some basic credentials to serve an agency with ever-increasing and complex issues.
This should not be necessary, but the decision to so politicize a branch of government like no other branch compromises how we approach wildlife issues from the get-go. The 1,000 species facing threats deserve better.
The executive branch has dug its heels into keeping the department a political piñata grounded in the past. And at the end of the day, what legislator or what citizen would disagree with having a credentialed (in the wildlife field) person serving in the post of commissioner of Fish & Wildlife, especially in the midst of a wildlife crisis?
The November-December 2021 issue of The Wildlife Professional, the chief publication serving the profession from The Wildlife Society, was devoted to the subject of “Crisis of Change — How should wildlifers respond to shifting public values?”
The society’s director of wildlife policy opened the issue with these comments: “This issue’s cover feature highlights the observed shift in the attitudes people have toward wildlife and wildlife management in North America. This shift, while neither good nor bad, is apparent and consequential for how we, as wildlife professionals, should — and will be able to — advance conservation.”
Vermont should be a leader in institutional reform in addressing the wildlife crisis before us. The Legislature must lead in this session by establishing minimum qualifications for the commissioner. It’s time for the Fish & Wildlife Department to be in full standing, full measure with other departments serving all Vermonters.
A fully credentialed professional is guiding us through the pandemic crisis. Let’s have a fully credentialed professional guide us through the wildlife crisis.
