This commentary is by Kevin Lawrence, who owns and operates a 250-tree apple and pear orchard in Newbury. He has spent 40 years volunteering to teach Vermonters ethical practices in Vermont Fish & Wildlife educational programs supporting hunting, fishing and trapping.
Recently the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department published its 2022 annual report detailing how the purchase of habitat stamps in Vermont generated conservation funding of $450,000.
Hunters, fishers and trappers make voluntary contributions while purchasing the annual licenses. Louis Porter initiated this program when he was the state’s Fish & Wildlife commissioner, creating a mechanism to improve habitat for wildlife and access to wild places.
The projects addressed with Habitat Stamp money directly impact the quality of plant and animal life for Vermont’s most marginalized landscapes. The report identifies town forest planning and information sessions in Hinesburg, Cambridge and Plainfield, to name a few locations.
The Pelletier Dam removal in Castleton led to an increase of 37 miles of free-flowing trout habitat. Successes included streambank plantings on the Winooski and dozens of informational sessions with private and public landowners to guide communities in restorative, sustainable practices that improve wildlife habitat.
The report provides a surface overview of dozens of projects detailing real outreach that improves our wildlands. Habitat is the key to having healthy wildlife populations. This message gets repeated annually through the work at the Green Mountain Conservation Camps and through dedicated, hands-on programs like Vermont Coverts.
Wildlife populations always require space and arrangement of food, water and shelter to thrive. Conservationists contribute time and money to secure public access and sustainable habitats for wildlife.
Contrast the boots-on-the-ground advocacy and real work of conservationists with the shrill social justice anti-hunters and anti-trappers who have proliferated in the last few years. Primarily led by a wealthy “gang of six” who repeatedly campaign against hunting, trapping and fishing, these small groups expend their out-of-state money to beat down the very people who contribute to wildlife habitat for all to enjoy.
Their membership lists are always top-secret, buoyed by out-of-state influencers who flood politicians’ email boxes and letters to the editor columns with their emotional demands to stop hunting, trapping and fishing.
My past work as chair of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department found the vocal anti-hunting lobby trying desperately to secure positions on the regulatory board that supports hunting, trapping and fishing in Vermont. The anti-crusaders’ stated goals include the eradication of conservation, portraying humankind as an enemy of nature.
Homo sapiens have hundreds of thousands of years hunting, trapping and fishing as members of the natural world. Anti-hunters routinely expressed to the Fish and Wildlife Board that humans did not have a role as stewards of the natural world, ignoring any discussion that pointed out that harvests of any species by hunters, trappers and fishers is highly regulated.
Management of wildlife species, along with forest and aquatic habitats, has developed with 100 years of scientific measurement. The shrill and emotional arguments the anti-conservationists extend offer no solutions to improving wildlife habitat. Name 10 projects that these carpetbaggers have completed to improve the habitat for Vermont’s animal neighbors. They don’t exist.
The hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on their misleading advertising campaigns and lobbying in Montpelier have made Vermonters weary of their railing against conservation. Politicians I have spoken to roll their eyes at the relentless campaigns that attempt to make Vermont into the states these social justice warriors left when they came to Vermont. The rapid declines seen in their social media footprint should provide acknowledgement that their hollow messages don’t inspire Vermonters. Instead, Vermonters believe that humans do have an engaging place in the natural world.