This commentary is by Lark Shields, a resident of Craftsbury.
On Wednesday, Jan. 19, there was a hearing on a bill to ban wanton waste — H.411 — in the Vermont House Committee on Natural Resources.
Wanton waste is the hunting or trapping of wildlife with no plan to use that animal for meat, fur, hide, feathers, or taxidermy. The legislative effort stemmed from a 2018 letter written by a retired Vermont game warden who had grown tired of seeing the wasteful killing of wildlife in our forests by unethical hunters and trappers. He specifically noted the unnecessary killing of coyotes.
During the hearing, the new commissioner of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, Christopher Herrick, made his legislative debut to testify on H.411, now in its third year of debate. It is important to note that, by no fault of his own, the commissioner is still new to the job and could not be expected to know the nuances of the topic being discussed.
That said, he decided to go it alone and present the department’s talking points without support of a subject-matter expert. What happened next was equal parts predictable and frustrating.
In his testimony, which struck a tone of quiet hostility, the commissioner read aloud a list of requirements that he insisted on if he — and, by extension, the Department of Fish & Wildlife — were to support a ban on the wanton waste of wildlife.
He asked that the committee exempt both crows and coyotes from the bill. So, to be clear, he is saying that he wants to continue to allow the wanton waste of those specific species only.
If you don’t already know, crows and coyotes are killed for fun and target practice in Vermont. The commissioner’s decision to exclude them from the bill leads one to presume that the commissioner did not want to take flak from a small but vocal group of unethical hunters and trappers. When pressed on why he wanted to exclude those species by curious legislators, he cited reasons that were based in emotion — in the case of coyotes — and a basic lack of knowledge of the actual bill — in the case of crows.
He opined that coyotes are ruthless killers of deer and therefore implied they should be killed. He righteously asked the committee members if they have ever seen a coyote take down a deer, and how it is “not a pretty sight” — apparently taking a moral high ground over how Mother Nature designed a predator, like the coyote, in his justification to continue the needless killing of them.
This is the same kind of fear-based predator-hating misinformation we see by government officials out West in their relentless slaughter of wolves.
And for killing crows, the commissioner said it was to defend farms, but a key provision already in the bill allows for wildlife, including crows, to be killed in defense of property. It would have been helpful if the commissioner read the bill before he’d testified against it.
As he read aloud his testimony, seated behind him, looking on with earnest consent, was a lobbyist for hunters and trappers. Those optics spoke volumes. And then the big surprise of his testimony came when the commissioner proposed an exemption that hunters and trappers can kill wildlife for fertilizer and still be covered under the wanton waste law.
Yes, fertilizer.
So, in the context of a bill to ban the unnecessary killing of wildlife, he wanted to add a provision that would allow the killing of wildlife to specifically be used to fertilize your garden. Evidently killing an animal for food, fur, feathers, hide, or taxidermy wasn’t quite sufficient.
It was a suspicious addition of a single word — fertilizer — creating a loophole that would make the law difficult to enforce. Taking a more cynical view, one could ascertain that a fertilizer provision is a poison pill that makes the entire bill toothless.
Not surprisingly, Gov. Scott appointed a new commissioner who has zero qualifications as it relates to an understanding of environmental sciences and biodiversity needs. The new commissioner also appears to be unwilling to reach across the aisle and work with the non-hunting/non-trapping public, the majority in Vermont. Safe to assume Herrick is feeling the pressure from some in the hunting and trapping community to obstruct and obfuscate all legislative activity.
Herrick has waded in the water above his head and quickly needs to figure out how to swim in an environment of recalcitrant views held by a minority of “sportsmen,” against a backdrop of an already changed society that is demanding better protections for wildlife.
