Even though all the scheduled meetings of the Task Force mandated by the Maine Legislature to determine why hunting and fishing license sales have declined over the past few years, only two of those meeting’s minutes have been posted and available to the public. For those interested in reading those minutes, follow this link, and to date the two meeting minutes were October 2, 2011 and October 23, 2011. Click on the link for the date of each of the meeting minutes and you can read them as a word document.

After reading over the minutes from the October 2, 2011 meeting, I put together a report of what my take was on the meeting from those minutes. You can find that article by clicking this link.

In that article I said that it appeared to me that the Task Force has made a determination that the major reasons for the decline were a bad economy and a poor perception by nonresidents that Maine has an unproductive deer management strategy.

In blaming the economy for this downtrend, there are at least two issues that need to be addressed. The first one is to take a look at when the trending down of license sales began. According to the information provided at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) website, the statistics compiled from “MOSES”, how licenses are sold in Maine, between 1995 and 2010, it appears that nonresident license sales for big game hunting peaked in 2002 at 30,676. Since that time sales have dropped off to a low in 2010 of 17,513 – an over 40% drop-off.

If the number of people unemployed is any indication of the health of an economy, or in this case as to whether people can or will spend money to hunt in Maine, we find that in 2002 when it appears nonresident hunting license sales peaked, unemployment was running at 5.5%. In July of 2005 that rate had continued to dip to 5%. While unemployment in 2005 was dropping to its lowest levels since prior to that attacks on the World Trade Center, Maine nonresident big game hunting license sales had dropped to 27,189.

We can continue to follow this trend. In October of 2006, unemployment stood at 4.4% and hunting license sales continued to drop to 26,067; October 2007 – unemployment = 4.7% and sales = 24,103; October 2008 – unemployment = 6.6% and sales = 20,878; October 2009 – unemployment = 10.1% and sales = 18,471; and finally in October 2010 – unemployment = 9.7% and sales = 17,513.

In this comparison, I fail to see any real direct correlation between unemployment and the reduction of nonresident hunting license sales. Long before the economy was souring, the sale of nonresident hunting licenses in Maine was dwindling.

This is not to say that a bad economy isn’t contributing to the reduction in license sales. Bear in mind, and I’ve pointed this out previously, that in one of the pieces of resource data that the Task Force opted to use, a study done by Responsive Management, their study indicated the opposite affect may result from a bad economy versus a robust economy. Their data indicated that in a booming economy, where much of the hunting participants work in construction, too much work prohibits them from taking the time or having the time to hunt. The study suggested that in times of a poor economy, perhaps more people would hunt due to more time available for them to hunt.

The second issue to discuss I find quite puzzling. While the Task Force focuses its blame for poor license sales on the economy, an article that appeared in the Kennebec Journal November 20, 2011, provided information that seems to blow the theory of a bad economy out of the water.

According to data from the Maine Office of Tourism, the number of overall out-of-state visitors to Maine is on the rise. In 2009, Maine saw a net visitation of 34.5 million. In 2010, that number grew to 37.5 million.

Even more puzzling is that Carolann Ouellette, director of the Maine Office of Tourism, sits on the Task Force board. All I have to go on is the information available on the MDIFW website, which included only minutes from 2 meetings. Nowhere in those minutes is there any mention of this statistic that overall tourism is up in Maine. Perhaps this was discussed and did not make the minutes. I just don’t know.

In the Kennebec Journal article, Ouellette says that her agency doesn’t keep specific statistic on hunters coming to the state and as such, “it’s difficult to say why that group isn’t returning in the same numbers.”

While it may be difficult for some to say why the nonresident hunters aren’t coming to Maine, I don’t think it’s all that difficult to conclude that the economy is not a major reason that deters them. To resolve to this conclusion appears to be inaccurate and paves the way for errant suggestions on how to correct a problem. In other words, the Task Force may be barking up the wrong tree.

In defense of the Task Force, the minutes to the second meeting of October 23, 2011, showed more specific suggestions of ways to improve hunting and better ways of promoting and marketing the resource and industry. Some of these ideas are good but will not happen without some money. Where that will come from is anyone’s guess.

It is my opinion that with this Task Force focusing the blame on the economy and that nonresident hunters are being told or are hearing bad things about a depleted deer herd, they are avoiding the real reasons why hunters aren’t coming to Maine.

It may be disconcerting to hear from the press and others, like myself, that Maine’s deer herd is in trouble but to stop talking about the truth will do nothing to correct the problem. The Task Force suggests that more positive talk should be made about all the good things Maine and MDIFW are doing for the deer. I and a few tens of thousands of other hunters would like nothing better. Right now, hearing a lot of talk, with the only actions being formulation of just another task force, isn’t going to alter the negative press. Results will do that. Sportsmen want results!

Tom Remington

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