This commentary is by Jane Fitzwilliam of Putney, coalition lead for the Vermont Coyote Coexistence Coalition.
The volume of commentaries, press coverage and bills before the Legislature seeking to bring wildlife policy into the present day is unprecedented. The controversies over the use of leghold traps and other contentious issues have been longstanding.
However, with each passing year, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department becomes more and more entrenched in the status quo. The problems start at the top.
Gov. Scott appointed yet another Fish & Wildlife commissioner who lacks any credentials in environmental sciences, wildlife management or similar experience. The new commissioner’s infamous testimony before the Legislature earlier this year poured fuel on the fire when he recommended that wildlife could be killed solely to be used as fertilizer to meet the criteria under the new wanton waste ban efforts. Fortunately, the commissioner’s absurd idea was rejected.
Fish & Wildlife’s opposition to three Senate wildlife bills that seek to modernize Vermont’s wildlife governance, with an eye toward better wildlife protections, demonstrates its allegiance to an entrenched agenda and extreme institutional bias.
Furthermore, Fish & Wildlife’s position of insisting on the wanton waste of coyotes, in a bill designed to specifically ban wanton waste, leaves one speechless. The governor and his new commissioner, with the longstanding complicity of senior management at the Fish & Wildlife Department, seem to be hellbent on keeping Vermont’s wildlife policies stuck in the 1950s despite the rising tide of opposition from the general public.
Fish & Wildlife’s own staff appears to agree that there are some challenges with the status quo. An internal survey shows that 85% of Fish & Wildlife staff agree that the public views of wildlife management are changing and 63% also believe that senior management is not doing enough to adapt to the contemporary challenges facing the department. Yet, Fish & Wildlife remains frozen in time.
The staff at the Fish & Wildlife Department is not alone. Leaders in the wildlife profession have called for fish and wildlife departments across the nation to reform in order to address today’s challenges.
The Wildlife Society has called for all wildlife professionals to adapt to today’s social and ecological landscape.
The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which is the professional organization representing fish & wildlife departments from across the country — Vermont Fish & Wildlife is a dues-paying member — has called for the transformation of department cultures, structures and operations.
And finally, the 2017 Center for Rural Studies’ Vermonter Poll demonstrates lack of public support for activities such as trapping using leghold traps, a practice that Fish & Wildlife holds dear. Again, out of touch with the times.
The alliance of a governor, complicit senior management at Fish & Wildlife, and a new commissioner who views wildlife as fertilizer creates a juggernaut of power designed to thwart serving the citizens. This juggernaut is only worsened by Fish & Wildlife senior staff never disclosing their inherent biases when testifying to the legislature.
Fish & Wildlife senior staff testifies in support of leghold traps, for example, using “biologist” credentials without disclosing extreme political bias toward trapping that has little to do with science. This scenario plays out over and over again.
Too much deference is given to Fish & Wildlife by legislators who continue to view them as unbiased experts and not as lobbyists for their “customers”: hunters and trappers.
This woeful situation is not without significant costs. With nearly 1,000 Vermont species designated as species of greatest conservation need, the extreme institutional bias at Fish & Wildlife detracts from delivering on meeting the challenges presented by those species.
When Fish & Wildlife commissioners, present and past, wouldn’t even support a bill to ban coyote-killing contests or ban coyote hounding — which is legalized dogfighting — how do they expect the general public to support or trust them?
When the Fish & Wildlife “biologist” engages in recent theatrics by quickly placing her thickly gloved hand in a leghold trap to try to convince legislators that traps aren’t inhumane, we know that we’ve reached an all-time low. Who feels comfortable donating to Fish & Wildlife after witnessing senior staff support activities that the majority finds exceptionally cruel and environmentally toxic?
“If state Fish and Wildlife Agencies fail to adapt, their ability to manage fish and wildlife will be hindered and their public and political support compromised.” — Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies.
We agree.