If there’s ever one thing any state fish and game department needs is good public relations and for the survival of that entity it is imperative that any fish and game have the utmost of quality public relations with the sportsmen who fund their department. While the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife does many good things, they certainly have produced some lousy imagery, particularly when it comes to dealing with a whitetail deer management crisis. It is a crisis you know.
No fish and game department can be everything to everybody, nor can they satisfactorily answer everyone’s questions and concerns. But that shouldn’t stop them from trying. Maine does, however, have a deer management crisis on their hands and too often it appears the only ones who think so are the sportsmen and a few citizens who are finding out there’s a problem.
Public relations is all about image and perception. It really may not even be about facts. It is simply a matter of how the public see their fish and game department. When too many see their fish and game department in a negative light, people at the department should be scrambling around to “photoshop” that image. After all, Maine does have a whitetail deer management crisis on their hands.
Maine sportsmen began complaining about the shrinking deer herd several years ago. I know this to be a fact because my email box contained several emails from hunters telling me about the problem and wanting to know if I knew anything that MDIFW was doing about it. I wasn’t aware of the problem and to be honest with you, I kind of blew it off myself. Shame on me.
But the grumblings grew louder and then the data began supporting what the sportsmen were yelling about. Where have the deer all gone? That became the question and it remains the question until sportsmen are satisfied with an answer. It appears we’ll get no more or better answers anytime in the near future.
MDIFW had a scape goat. They quickly blamed the problem on two consecutive severe winters with deep snow packs. Convenient, yes, but sportsmen weren’t buying that as the sole reason the Northern and Eastern Maine deer herds were shrinking rapidly. The blame quickly shifted to landowners who were cutting down trees that comprise all the winter deer yards. Again, sportsmen weren’t buying that as the sole reason for a shrinking deer herd. Many, myself included, yelled and screamed about predation from coyotes/wolf hybrids, bobcats and black bears, but sportsmen didn’t accept that excuse as the sole reason. After all, there is a whitetail deer management crisis in Maine.
Unofficially, Maine accepted the tri-fecta of snow, logging and predation as the problem. None of this has stopped the questions and nobody seems to be able to satisfy the sportsmen or citizens with any real solutions. Instead, sportsmen feel they have gotten the runaround and they’ve been witness to some pretty bizarre public relations stunts that have only fueled the flames of distrust while discoloring the image.
Back in December, when the fall deer hunting season was fresh in hunters’ minds, some serious complaining began. Much of that was directed at coyotes with hunters demanding that MDIFW do something about the problem. Not only did the demands fall on deaf ears but at the time Travis Barrett, one of MDIFW’s PR guys and a blogger, responded to complaints by saying essentially that coyote predation on deer wasn’t fish and games’ problem and that if hunters didn’t like it, they could go kill themselves all the coyote they wanted.
I even said at the time that Barrett’s comments were probably truthful but as I have just said in this article, image isn’t necessarily about facts. It’s all about perception and readers saw this aloof response as uncaring, even unconcerned. After all, Maine has a whitetail deer management crisis on their hands.
Maine citizens entered the fray. In Otisfield, residents gathered in February bringing in officials from town, county and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Residents wanted questions answered about what was going to be done about coyotes killing and harassing livestock and family pets. Essentially the response they got was to learn to live with it; a complete and utter public relations disaster.
Nobody at MDIFW stepped to the front to own the problem and work on improving a declining image. A simple, “We understand! We agree! We have a crisis! We are working on it!”, would have gone a long way but I didn’t hear that. I heard more of the same – bad winters, poor habitat. Knock, knock! Maine has a whitetail deer management crisis on their hands.
The rhetoric and bantering continued. Groups began to organize. Petitions were signed demanding the governor do something. In short, sportsmen wanted answers. They weren’t getting them. Hello! Maine does have a deer management crisis on their hands.
Then a bomb drops. George Smith, Executive Director for the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, announces that he and Sen. David Trahan have discovered that Gardner Land Company cut down one of Maine’s prized winter deer yards on land they acquired from the controversial Baxter Land Swap.
There were a lot of accusations made and information shared putting MDIFW square in the middle of yet another controversy, another public relations image calamity. According to Smith, Gardner was prohibited from cutting the winter deer yard as part of the Baxter Land Swap agreement. Smith also wrote that MDIFW knew about the cutting and did nothing to stop it.
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife needed to do something. Their image was suffering. With a deer management crisis on MDIFW’s hand, someone needed to step forward. They needed to reassure the sportsmen and Maine citizens that everything was under control. Instead, Commissioner Martin opts to rebut George Smith‘s “bomb drop” about Gardner Land Company cutting down the forest.
Instead of refuting all the accusations that have left many sportsmen and citizens fuming at what appears to be (image, perception) poor management and blatant incompetence, Martin manages only to tell people the deer winter yards they cut weren’t any good anyway. And in his words, he said that Gardner Land Company didn’t do anything that “IF&W wouldn’t have proposed on its own”. How reassuring! With a deer herd in Northern and Eastern Maine on the verge of extinction, one would be led to believe that an organization that continuously blames loss of habitat as one of the major causes, would see cutting any deer wintering yard as a bad thing. After all, Maine does have a whitetail deer management crisis on their hands.
Still searching for answers and leadership, Maine’s sportsmen and much of its citizenry seem more like the Israelites after Moses led them out of bondage, wandering aimlessly in the desert. As George Smith and Harry Vanderweide, the Maine Sportsman, prepare for Maine’s largest outdoor sports show, like Moses, they assure their followers that representatives of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will participate in a Q&A session so they can get their questions answered.
Billed as the “Save Our Deer Day“, it was planned that both George Smith and Harry Vanderweide would asked the tough questions of MDIFW experts and also take questions from the audience. Errrrrr, MDIFW has pulled the plug and will not participate. Yo!! Anybody at all at home in there!! Maine DOES have a whitetail deer management crisis on its hands. The mirror is cracked, the image is upside down and doesn’t even resemble the original picture.
Witness a public relations disaster! What’s up with all this? Is MDIFW guilty on all charges? Or are we just looking at a lame duck wildlife commissioner? The Commissioner’s position is an appointed one by the governor. Gov. John Baldacci is a lame duck and so is his commissioner. Is this what we are seeing?
The perceived image has become so skewed and soured that what is happening is very typical. People are left to draw their own conclusions and to keep pounding away with the questions. We are left wondering what to believe, who to listen to and who to follow.
In the meantime, I think I heard a little mouse someplace squeaking that Maine has a serious whitetail deer management crisis on their hands.
Tom Remington
