March 29, 2024
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Fate of Maine wildlife gets public input

After members of the public complained last year about the number of moose in parts of Maine, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife changed its policy. A committee of members appointed from the public recommended the state’s herd should be reduced along the southern coast and increased in most of northern and eastern Maine. The idea was to minimize moose-related automobile accidents in some areas, while improving moose watching and hunting elsewhere.

The change in strategy is one example of how every 15 years the public gets to determine the fate of Maine’s wildlife through “public working groups.” The groups convene with state biologists to draw up new goals for more than 70 species whose numbers are overseen by DIF&W.

The process has set Maine apart from many states where wildlife management is still largely controlled by the bureaucracy.

“Maine is the most progressive state in the Northeast without a question when it comes to public involvement,” said John Organ, Northeast wildlife program chief for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The public is a major stakeholder in Maine’s wildlife management program. It’s a model we’d love to see other states employ.”

A public working group that met in Sidney recently to decide goals for common eider ducks was made up of people with interests that clearly clashed, but the goals were reached by consensus.

Bill Wasson, the owner of a Thomaston-based guide service, Maine Sea Ducks, has worked three seasons a year for the past 12 years guiding sea duck hunters in the fall and winter. Wasson sees one goal when it comes to common eider, and that is maintaining a healthy population for hunters.

On the other hand, Glen Mittelhauser, a scientist who has studied sea ducks for the United States and Canadian governments, just wants to protect them.

“If I were to write DIF&W’s goals for eider, it would be a lot different, a lot less useful, not necessarily taking into account all the [different groups involved with the species],” Mittelhauser said.

Since 1968 DIF&W has tried to improve how it regulates wildlife populations. In the beginning, the public was allowed to make comments only about its proposed policies.

In 1986, public participation was expanded with the creation of the working groups to actually formulate policy recommendations. The goals the public groups devise are still subject to approval by the DIF&W Advisory Council, its rule-making body, and the commissioner.

Organ said U.S. Fish and Wildlife had been preaching more interaction between the state and the public on wildlife management, but not many states have followed the example.

“It seems, at times, we have been accused of not listening to the public,” said DIF&W wildlife planner Sandy Ritchie. “The resource is held in public trust. They should have a say in what we’re managing for and how we do that.”

While DIF&W invites many individuals representing different wildlife issues, not all attend, as the common eider working group proved.

Of the 14 invited to the meeting, six appeared.

For example, representatives of Maine Audubon and the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine didn’t attend.

While some groups, like the one for common eiders, may take only a day, others, like the one that decided the fate of Maine’s big game species (moose, deer, bear and coyote), may hold meetings for months.

“We want you to give us a timeline, what you’re asking to do, by how much, by when,” Ritchie said at the eider duck meeting. “You can include bringing in or increasing public understanding.”

Wasson said the process is predictable, but not without controversy, even in the case of the low-profile common eider.

One of the objectives the group proposed was reducing the numbers of black backed gulls, the eider’s greatest predator. But doing so could raise public ire.

“That’s not PC. But that doesn’t bother me,” DIF&W bird leader Brad Allen said. “We could scare them off. That’s one of many ways.”

U.S. Fish and Wildlife representative Linda Welch pointed out that with common eider mortality there are many related problems, like visitors to islands during breeding season who scare off nesting eiders. With the eggs exposed, the gulls can snatch them.

“It only takes one party landing on an island to lose all the eggs there,” Welch said.

Allen told the group Maine is home to roughly 29,000 common eider ducks that nest on 320 islands, and all those islands need to be predator free for the bird to reproduce successfully. For the eider, which doesn’t breed until age three and then has an average clutch size of just four eggs, the importance of reproducing and growing to maturity is imperative, Allen said.

The goals the public working group decided to recommend for eiders (which are still in draft form) include increasing the population of nesting birds by 20 percent by 2016 by decreasing the threat of predators, increasing public awareness of the dangers the bird faces, and conducting research on mortality rates.

This last pleased Maine Guide Jeff Bellemore, also a member of the group.

He worried his interests won’t be served if research on eider mortality is not part of the management process.

“If they don’t have the numbers, if they don’t have the information, then they decrease the bag limits,” Bellemore said.

“As a hunter I want more of the ducks out there. I want them there for my great-grandchildren. I want them there a thousand years from now.”

Deirdre Fleming covers outdoor sports and recreation for the NEWS. She can be reached at 990-8250 or at dfleming@bangordailynews.net.


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