Hunting for change Anti-bear-baiting activists see the need for a new IF&W — one that doesn’t simply back fish-and-game interests BY LANCE TAPLEY

The folks who want to ban bear baiting are threatening to sue Governor John Baldacci’s administration because they say Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W) employees are illegally spending public dollars by joining in the fish-and-game lobby’s campaign against the fall referendum. Although Baldacci is opposed to the citizens’ initiative, his officials deny — sometimes evasively — that state personnel are working against the ballot measure.

But this issue brings up a larger one: What is the role of a state fish-and-wildlife department in the 21st century? Should it be tightly bound to the fish-and-game lobby? Shouldn’t it be serving a wider public, especially wildlife watchers, who are far more numerous than hunters and anglers? And some people think such agencies are not doing enough to serve women’s interests.

"Nationally, I think, agencies are struggling to find the funding to diversify their services and value to a broader public," says Joanna Prukop, the state energy, minerals, and natural resources department chief in New Mexico. She previously worked at the International Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies after a 26-year career with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and is an author of the international organization’s recently adopted statement of principles.

She adds, in an email message: "The fact that so many agencies are still primarily funded via [hunting and fishing] license dollars keeps them serving a narrow and predominately male public . . . [and] so use it as an excuse to do so."

Because our state’s fisheries and wildlife department doesn’t recognize the need to serve women’s interests, says Maine wildlife consultant Sandra Neily, "in the [bear-baiting] referendum it’ll come back to bite them."

According to the referendum campaign, its opinion polling shows Maine women overwhelmingly oppose baiting, as well as bear trapping and the use of hounds to hunt bears, practices also outlawed by the referendum bill. They consider these practices cruel and sporting. In general, women are far less oriented to hunting and fishing. A Maine Audubon Society study in 1999 authored by Neily showed that only eight percent of Maine hunters were female. When anglers were added in, sportsmen were still 77 percent male. The referendum campaign, however, also says that, in the majority, men, too, are opposed to baiting and the other practices.

Regardless of their sex, Mainers have changed their recreations. Although both our population and the number of visitors to the state have grown, hunters have declined in number: from 223,000 in 1993 to 213,000 last year (about a quarter of hunters are nonresident). Angler licenses have dropped like a lead sinker: from 304,000 in 1993 to 267,000 in 2003 (40 percent nonresident).

Many times more Maine people — both men and women — have become involved with wildlife in bird watching, photography, hiking, canoeing, and kayaking than in killing animals. Neily’s study, entitled "Watching Out for Maine’s Wildlife," shows that "wildlife watchers," at three quarters of a million people, including visitors, easily outnumber hunters and anglers combined. They make an economic contribution to the state equal to hunters or anglers. Nature tourism, the fastest-growing segment of the travel industry, has averaged annual increases of 30 percent each year, the report says.

If there were to be a change in the Maine IF&W, however, everyone agrees it would have to begin with an economic reform. IF&W gets 64 percent of its revenue from hunting and fishing license sales and none from the state’s general fund. As IF&W Commissioner Roland "Dan" Martin admits, "I would be less than candid if I didn’t say we are aligned with the people who fund the organization." This alignment has an ironic twist. Martin is "following the money" to a dwindling source: declining license sales.

As government correspondence reveals — unearthed through the Freedom of Access (FOA) law by referendum-campaign supporters — the department’s alignment is especially strong with the Augusta lobby that claims to represent hunters and anglers. This lobby is led by the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM), which in supporting bear baiting wants to preserve what it calls "traditional" hunting practices (though IF&W says most commercial baiting dates only from the 1970s).

The SAM-department connection is old news. "SAM is clearly in partnership with the department," declares the 1999 Audubon report. This partnership exists even though SAM’s representation of sportsmen is limited. It has a membership of 14,000 out of Maine’s 481,000 hunters and anglers — three percent. But conservative political activist George Smith, who runs SAM with a tight hand, has great influence over fish-and-game issues in the state. His sister Edith Leary runs the anti-referendum campaign organization SAM has organized, called Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Council.

The fish-and-game lobby’s smaller groups include the Maine Professional Guides Association and Maine Trappers Association, the outfits whose members have the most to lose if the referendum passes. Most bear-baiting hunters are out-of-state trophy seekers who hire guides. The guides pay large landowners for exclusive rights to bait bears in large territories of the North Woods.

THE LEGAL COMPLAINT

On Wednesday, June 30, the pro-referendum forces, led by Maine Citizens for Fair Bear Hunting and its national funders, the Humane Society of the United States and the Fund for Animals, were scheduled to hold a news conference in Falmouth to release a letter they have written to Commissioner Martin and Baldacci aide Richard Davies — with a copy to Attorney General Steven Rowe. In it, they ask the administration to stop state employees from "invalidly spending taxpayer money in an effort to defeat the referendum." The Phoenix obtained a copy in advance.

Citing legal precedents, the groups’ attorney Bruce Merrill, of Portland, writes, "Under Maine law, public agencies may not spend public funds to take sides in elections and attempt to influence results . . . unless authorized to do so by the legislature." Quoting a Florida court decision, he argues: "If government, with its relatively vast financial resources, access to the media, and technical know-how, undertakes a campaign to favor or oppose a measure placed on the ballot, then by so doing government undercuts the very fabric which the Constitution weaves to prevent government from stifling the voice of the people."

The letter accuses IF&W and the governor’s staff of strategizing and coordinating activities with SAM, with pollster Chris Potholm, and with other referendum opponents. It claims that the department reached out to officials in other states to try to figure out how to win; that it linked the department’s Web site to SAM and put anti-referendum material on the site; and that it tried to discourage Maine Audubon from getting involved in the issue (the large bird-watching and conservation group decided to remain neutral). The letter charges department personnel have spent time writing anti-referendum op-eds and have stumped for votes against the referendum at public events.