This commentary is by Dan Galdenzi, a resident of Stowe.
I recently spent the longest day of the year, Wednesday, June 21, at Montpelier High School attending a Fish & Wildlife “public” hearing on new trapping and coyote hounding regulations.
I quoted the word “public” because the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department and its board are loath to hear from the actual public, and have these public hearings only because they are forced to by statute.
As we gathered to discuss the finer points of recreationally killing animals for hobby, the auditorium at the high school was filled with about 85 people, 70 of whom were from the public and the rest Fish & Wildlife staff. The scene was tense but professional. Armed game wardens made their presence known as they stood at attention in the back of the room.
The regulations being proposed are nuanced and technical, so I won’t get into those details. But to get a sense, they are talking about things like how trappers can kill the animals they caught — bullet vs stomping, arrow vs. drowning — and other similar pleasantries.
As for coyote hounding regulations, it was more light fare, such as how many dogs they can use to chase coyotes, and the penalties (or the lack thereof) for crossing onto posted private property. I imagined this is what it must have been like when the CIA was behind closed doors discussing the subtleties of waterboarding prisoners.
The evening kicked off with a propaganda primer from the Fish & Wildlife Department as it postponed the relinquishing of its bully pulpit for as long as possible. Its deep institutional bias was bubbling just below the surface of the orchestrated charade.
Then the room broke into nine working groups with a mix of anti- and pro-animal welfare participants in each. A Fish & Wildlife representative was assigned to facilitate and note-take for each group.
I intentionally joined a group that was heavily loaded with trappers and hounders so I could hopefully provide an outside perspective to their thinking, while also trying to understand their positions. My group was cordial and polite, and we had a thoughtful sharing of opinions, minus one gentleman who stormed off in a huff when he disagreed with me.
It was remarkable to me how people who terrorize, trap and kill animals for hobby can say, with a straight face, they care about animal welfare. It’s something I genuinely struggle to comprehend.
The Fish & Wildlife representative was a pleasant and soft-spoken man who kept the tenor calm and respectful. He acted as a reminder to me that maybe it’s only the Fish & Wildlife old-guard leadership that is so out of sync with public opinion, and not the entire department.
In the end, I doubt many opinions were changed. For example, during the public comment period at the end of the night, a woman whose dog was recently killed in a trap pleaded for the use of signage so the public can at least know where traps are hidden. Instead, she was victim-blamed for not having her dog leashed.
And to illustrate an example of the double standard, that very night, the hounders were making the case that their dogs — who are not leashed and set out into the woods miles away to chase coyotes — are under their control. You simply can’t make this stuff up.
As the longest day of the year finally began to turn to night, we poured out into the parking lot to huddle with our respective like-minded groups to recap the events of the evening. During my car ride home, I couldn’t help but wonder why the Fish & Wildlife Department was spending countless hours of its limited resources catering to a tiny privileged special-interest group — about 700 people statewide — to maintain a recreation that more than 75% of Vermonters oppose. All at the cost of not working on the more important issues that are impacting all other species who are feeling the weight of climate change and biodiversity collapse. Their priorities seem deeply misguided.
