I was reading through the threads and comments of the Maine Sportsman Forum this morning. Some of you may have read my articles about the controversy of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM) seeking email addresses of sportsmen from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife through the Freedom of Information Act law. This thread is discussing that topic and that’s where I pulled the comment below made by Harry Vanderweide, Editor of the Maine Sportsman.

SAM, the Nature Conservancy and Maine Audubon have joined together to seek passage of a constitutional amendment referendum that aims to create stable dedicated funding for the Department through a tiny percentage of the sales tax. That effort is crucially important to DIF&W. The Department currently gets no state tax money and is now running deeply in the red with no way out. In other words, as a matter of simple survival, it is in the Department’s best interest to work with SAM because nobody else is offering solutions to solving the Department’s serious financial woes.

This comment is saying that MDIFW is so financially in trouble it is willing to do whatever is necessary to obtain funding and that nobody else is offering suggestions. Well, I have been offering suggestions for quite some time. Either nobody is listening or I’m not offering suggestions that anyone is interested in hearing. Let’s try again.

The first problem why MDIFW is broke is they have morphed into being a do-all department, much of which has nothing or little to do with fish and wildlife and too much to do with issues not related to fish and game. Call that a problem or not, but you can’t keep asking the MDIFW to take on nongame issue while only asking the fish and game license buyers to fund these programs.

So the solution is quite simple actually. If, as Vanderweide says, SAM, the Nature Conservancy and Audubon have teamed up to find tax dollars to fund IFW, then why not put these nongame entities into the hands of the Department of Conservation, Parks and Recreation, Law Enforcement, or any other non fish and non game entity, and then fund it with tax payer dollars the way it should be?

Do the Maine sportsmen want members of the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, Wildlife Alliance of Maine or any other agency dujour not interested in the best interests of hunters, fishermen and trappers sitting on the Commission? That’s what you’ll get if this is the route that is pursued. Politics controls far too much of MDIFW now. Add tax dollars to the funding and it will only get worse.

I see no reason why these nongame programs can’t be moved to departments where they belong out of MDIFW and then funded with tax money as they should be. This will relieve the MDFIW from the monetary load of keeping these programs up and the manpower required, then they can get back to focusing on fish and game issue with the same amount of money. Doesn’t this make sense? Isn’t this better than having your fish and game department run by animal rights groups and environmentalists?

If you agree, call SAM, call your representative, tell your neighbor, tell somebody. If you disagree, call SAM, call your representative, tell you neighbors, tell somebody. But please tell somebody how you feel about your wildlife management.

Tom Remington

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