This commentary is by Alana Stevenson, a resident of Charlotte.
I attended the beginning of the most recent Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board meeting online. The meeting is held in Berlin and goes on for four hours. Anyone can share a public comment at the beginning of the meeting and you are allotted two minutes.
The board is made up of 14 individuals, all trappers, hounders and hunters chosen by Gov. Scott. The board discusses everything and anything related to wildlife and is responsible for all policies that govern wildlife and affect wild animals in Vermont. This includes how the animals are treated and managed, whether hounding should be regulated, “bag limits” (the number of animals allotted to kill), the length of trapping seasons, what type of instruments are to be used such as crossbows and the width or diameter of arrowheads — and on it goes. The board makes all decisions governing wildlife and has the final say, even over legislation that directly affects them.
At the beginning of the meeting, I read comments I had on S.281, which was adopted last year as Act 165, on Hunting Coyotes with the Aid of Dogs, regarding the board’s draft recommendations.
The meeting was eye-opening to say the least. I knew it was bad. The foxes run the henhouse, as the saying goes. But it was worse than that. The meeting was like going back to the late 1600s mindset when it comes to wildlife and domination over nature.
It can take far longer than a two-minute comment and even 1,000 words to cover what is flawed, incoherent and wrong with a group of coyote and bear hounders, trappers and hounding enthusiasts deciding on how to regulate themselves, since at the start of the meeting they cried they were picked on and gave each other a round of applause.
The Fish and Wildlife Board needs to be dismantled. It is useless at best and terrifyingly harmful. There is no democracy. No integrity. No credentialing. No knowledge in science or background in environmental studies, ecology, or wildlife biology. And no allowed input from nonhounders or from those who want trapping regulated or hounding restricted (with the exception of your two-minute comment).
If there is a board that has ultimate say over all of Vermont’s wildlife, members need to be voted in by the public and not chosen by the governor, who is rabidly pro-hounding and trapping himself. One man should not have entire control over all wildlife policy in Vermont.
Since I was allotted only two minutes, here is some of what I wanted to say regarding hunting coyotes with dogs and recommendations made by the department.
The board allegedly is to follow policy for “protection” and “conservation” of furbearing animals that is in the “best interest of public welfare.” Since people and animals have been attacked and there are consistent run-ins with landowners who do not want hounding on their property, hounding coyotes and bears needs to be banned outright.
The only way to reduce conflicts between hounders, hounds and the public, as well as injuries to farmed and domestic animals who fall victim to hounds, is for hounds to be on-leash or on fenced-in private property.
There is no humane way of taking a coyote with dogs.
Act 165 states that a person shall not take a coyote with the aid of dogs unless the person is in control of the dogs. Yet, “control of dogs” is in direct opposition to hounding, since the hunting hounds are released, off leash, to run after fleeing and terrified animals and none of the dogs can read no trespassing signs.
There needs to be an objective definition of “control.” A requirement that the hounds be transported in dog boxes in the back of pickup trucks might be an acceptable definition of control for the Fish and Wildlife Board and governor, but it is not what “control” means to the general public and for public safety. Dogs transported in a “dog box” are confined, not controlled. Confinement is not the same as control, nor should it be legitimized as such.
The catching and restraining of dogs that pursue coyotes needs to be addressed to ensure that hounders (and those joining them) can do so at any point in time and can ensure that the dogs stay on permitted land.
It is stated in Act 165 that those in the hound-hunting group need to be able to see and communicate with each other, without the aid of artificial devices. Ironically, none of them are required to see or communicate with the dogs. If you cannot see and communicate with the dogs in real time, how do you control them? It’s not possible.
A GPS collar shows the approximate location of dogs, which changes moment from moment. It is not a control mechanism. Likewise, a shock collar or “training” collar is irrelevant if it is not used correctly, and if the dog is not trained to understand what the shock means and when. And it’s impossible to zap multiple dogs simultaneously. If hounders are not in visual sight of their dogs, they don’t know when or how to use the shock or training collars effectively, which relegates the collars as meaningless or useless in terms of control.
As it stands now, those who hunt coyotes with dogs do not need hounding permits. All they need is a hunting license and to be accompanied by one individual who has the hounding permit. The number of hunters pursuing a coyote with dogs in a group is unlimited. If hunters are using dogs — even someone else’s dogs — to chase coyotes, these hunters need to be in control over the dogs and responsible for them, not just the individual permit holder.
Nonresidents should not be able to hold hounding permits, period, regardless of whether the training season in their state coincides with Vermont’s — a primary reason being there are no repercussions if their dogs attack others or if out-of-state hunters run on other people’s property, since they can simply leave the state afterward.
Keep in mind, most dogs used for coyote and bear hounding are kenneled or tied 24/7 unless out chasing bears and coyotes. They are put in tiny dog boxes in the back of a truck. These dogs are not loved, family dogs lying by the fire and going for walks.
The legal hours for pursuit of coyotes with dogs is 30 minutes before sunrise and 30 minutes after sunset. Before and after it’s dark makes controlling dogs off-leash and on the run even further challenging, especially when there are multiple dogs or a pack of them.
If you’d like to read Act 165, you can go here. I invite everyone to get more involved in wildlife issues. You may not think they affect you, but they do. Only if people speak up will action be taken and changes be made.