This commentary is by Anne Jameson, a resident of Marshfield.
In Vermont, where the opinions of others are usually listened to, if not always accepted, the treatment of wildlife advocates by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department and Board is at odds with that consideration.
While wildlife advocacy groups are “listened to,” their concerns and ideas are mostly ignored, not “heard” or considered, and often refuted.
This was apparent at the April 7 House Committee on Energy and Environment, as presentations for the review of Act 159 — best management practices for trapping — were being offered. The commissioner of the Fish & Wildlife Department, a furbearer biologist who oversees trapping for Fish & Wildlife, as well as representatives from two of the main wildlife advocacy organizations in the state testified before the committee.
Enacted in June 2022, Act 159 requires the Fish & Wildlife commissioner to provide recommendations for best management practices for trapping furbearing animals in Vermont. Those practices were to be submitted to the General Assembly by Jan. 15, 2023. After legislative review of the BMPs, state rules regulating trapping would be revised and published by the Fish and Wildlife Board.
To facilitate ideas and research material, a best management practices working group was established in July 2022. At its inception, the group was already biased toward trappers: Of the original seven members, only two were from the wildlife advocacy community. A third advocate was later added at the request of legislators.
Within the working group sessions, wildlife advocates documented a number of concerns, including: wildlife advocates’ positions were incorrectly published in both Fish & Wildlife’s minutes and on its website; pertinent data was omitted in some of Vermont Fish & Wildlife’s presentations; none of the wildlife advocates’ recommendations were incorporated as originally presented, whereas the trapping stakeholder group’s recommendations were accepted verbatim.
Fish & Wildlife actually weakened the trapping stakeholder group’s recommendations to make them more favorable toward trappers. This occurred after the working group meetings adjourned and without the wildlife advocacy working group members’ knowledge.
During the April 7 committee hearing on Act 159 better management practices, the public witnessed more polarizing rhetoric from the commissioner and the same furbearer biologist. The commissioner described wildlife advocates as “misinformed or possibly something worse,“ basically saying that if anyone challenges his department staff, they’re misinformed.
The commissioner and the furbearer biologist spent most of their testimony, not on Act 159, but instead attempting to discredit wildlife advocacy organizations’ previous testimony made before the Senate, accusing them of spreading misinformation. This gaslighting went on for almost an hour.
The inherent bias of the Fish & Wildlife Department is also obvious when wildlife advocates present their views before the Fish and Wildlife Board. At a recent Fish and Wildlife Board meeting, a wildlife advocate made his allotted two-minute public comment and politely asked for clarification on contradictory statements made by two of Fish & Wildlife’s furbearer biologists.
The advocate was later confronted by an antagonistic, less-than-respectful Fish & Wildlife Department furbearer biologist “taking exception” to the advocate’s opinion and alleging that his “characterization of the situation was incorrect.” The biologist cautioned the advocate to come to the department to talk about issues, leaving the advocate wondering if that wasn’t what he’d just done in his public comment. The biologist walked off in a huff. This was very unprofessional, and not respectful treatment of others with a differing viewpoint.
Equally concerning is when a board member asked the commissioner what exactly is “recreational trapping.” The commissioner responded defensively, saying that “recreational trapping is a misnomer,” despite the fact that his own department included this question in its 2022 furbearer survey: “Do you support recreational trapping?”
The commissioner likely didn’t expect such a poor response to the survey question (only 26% of Vermonters support recreational trapping), so now he’s claiming it’s a misnomer. That’s because there are two bills right now seeking to ban recreational trapping: H.191 and S.111.
It’s quite apparent that the commissioner and others in charge at the Fish & Wildlife Department are uninterested in unifying Vermonters with different values toward wildlife. Fish & Wildlife has privatized wildlife — what it refers to as a “resource” for the taking — for special-interest groups such as trappers. Having dug in their heels and chosen sides, clearly in violation of the public trust doctrine, the question of “why we trap” in the first place is still to be addressed.
