Vermont’s governance of the wild amidst changing values
by Walter Medwid
The steady flow of letters to the editor and commentaries, admonishing Vermont’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) to reexamine its embrace of positions on issues such as the use of body-crushing, leg hold and drowning traps; the use of hounds in hunting of bear, raccoon or coyotes; or its anti-predator bias raise questions about what really is happening. How did these controversial practices come to reflect Vermont public policy and Vermont values?
Some context may be useful to better understand the forces at play. The heyday of hunting license sales was in the mid-1970s. For example, in the category of “resident hunting” license sales, 1974 was the high-water mark at 63,177. By 2021 that number was 17,431. Over that same period, “combination” license (hunting and angling) sales were down from 51,800 to 27,835. So, for nearly a half century, license sales have been in steep decline. An effort to recruit a new generation of hunters and reverse the trend by establishing a youth hunting license began in 1993. Despite that effort, those license sales have also dropped from 7,507 in 1993 to 3,434 in 2021. Clearly, Vermont’s culture is changing from a model of traditional, dominance over nature (it’s there for human use) to a coexistence model. Ironically, in a 2018 survey conducted by Colorado State University, the largest group of the Vermonters (34%) identified as mutualists (prioritizing coexistence with wildlife) yet at the same time mutualists were the least represented orientation at DFW (only about 5%), with traditionalists dominating staff values. Vermont’s culture evolves and yet DFW remains anchored in the past.
During this same period of license sales decline and cultural shift, a global wildlife crisis has also emerged. Vermont has now identified some 1,000 species as species in “greatest conservation need” – and that list doesn’t even include over 200 Vermont species already listed as threatened or endangered. To add to the challenges, a recent UVM report shows that the state is losing some 1500 acres of forest lands every year.
The issue isn’t about hunting-an important management tool for deer in particular-it is about aligning an agency to address contemporary challenges. Vermont has not responded to this new cultural and environmental landscape. Governor Scott has adopted a wildlife governance model that is labeled in scientific wildlife journals as the “Iron Triangle.” One side of the triangle are traditional license holders-hunters and trappers. Side two is the management at the DFW, headed not by a wildlife professional but by the governor’s political operative, chosen to prioritize license holder interests as the chief agenda. The last side of the triangle is the Fish and Wildlife Board (FWB), which consists of one member from each county chosen by the governor-all are either hunters, anglers and/or trappers. The governor could have addressed inclusion and equity issues in his appointments but chose instead to pack the house in their role of establishing public policy over all game species. It is worth noting that the FWB is a remnant of Governor Snelling’s efforts in the 1970s to professionalize and modernize how state operations function by shifting from boards and commissions to professional staff. And while Snelling’s efforts were largely successful, the pushback from hunters who feared losing their privileged status with a board of their peers to wildlife biologists, resulted in the oddity of the Fish and Wildlife Department having no regulatory or policy authority over deer and dozens of other game species-a department that has never had full standing unlike others in state government. Thus the FWB (unelected, unaccountable and largely uncredentialed; and representing only a small fraction of Vermonters) determines public policy over public resources held by law in the public trust but without the public having any standing- effectively creating a fourth branch of government. This amounts to a privatization of a public resource which is specifically forbidden in Title 10, Section 4081 of Vermont law (wildlife is for the benefit of all citizens). Further, the Iron Triangle model of making public policy via a body that represents only a narrow subset of Vermonters, runs contrary to Article 7 of our Constitution.
The reality is that our wildlife governance is as politicized as anything in Idaho or Montana. Vermont’s Iron Triangle has full and complete control over a swath of public resources. And in that model, wildlife policy as stated in Section 4081 is thrown under the bus. The strongest of recommendations from the wildlife profession in the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ (AFWA) Blue Ribbon Report, calling for state agencies to “transform” to address contemporary conditions, is ignored. The seminal paper calling for agencies to adopt wildlife governance principles for the 21st century is also ignored. Instead the governor and his Iron Triangle keeps wildlife governance in a time capsule that harkens back to the mid-1970s.
But at what cost? One sentence from the AFWA Report regarding costs of functioning under the Iron Triangle hits the nail on the head, “If state fish and wildlife agencies fail to adapt, their ability to manage fish and wildlife will be hindered and their public and political support compromised
So, as far as the letters to the editor and commentaries calling for the DFW or FWB to reconsider positions on controversial subjects, they are of no direct consequence to any component of the Iron Triangle. The letters and commentaries do however raise public and legislator awareness of the disconnects outlined above. With continued public pressure, it is likely more legislative initiatives will emerge in the face of executive branch intransigence.
Governor Snelling was ahead of his time in wanting to modernize and professionalize all of government operations in light of the landscape before him in order to better serve all Vermonters. His responsible, common sense and proactive leadership approach would surely come in handy today.
Walter Medwid is a resident of Derby.
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Categories: Commentary
Does protecting wildlife include tearing up their habitat for wind turbines, fields of solar panels, or sky dusting chemicals from six or seven jets in crossing patterns across a wide swath of a once clear blue sky in less than an hour? The government has done unspeakable, unfathomable damage to the environment, animal and human existence – all the while pretending to “protect” the sanctity of life – wild or otherwise. Masters of distraction and deceit in order to destroy.
tough words m. c../// if the deer are a public resource they must be removed from my private property upon my request///i am not in any public private contract with the state to house, feed, or water any wild animal
Thank you for an exceptionally well crafted article for a change. Filled with hard data and statistics instead of conjecture, biased opinion and fear mongering nonsense about the need to kill bears and their cubs so they dont wind up in your kitchen sounds like it was derived from The Three Little Bears fairy tale. Go hunting. Feed your family. Torturing animals for sport or personal profit or harassing the majority who have the gumption to challenge your now outdated perspectives is detestable, tho there is little doubt it will continue.
the right to hunt in the vermont constitution is not with the privilege of having a license////property owners are exempt///any questions
No matter what I read from Mr. Medwid, biologists have managed Bears into a 4x increase in spite of human encroachment. Personally I see this as a good thing, but along with a populationNo matter what I read from Mr. Medwid, or those with similar agendas, my thoughts return to a few facts that can not be argued. First, the numbers of any species which the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife have been entrusted with have possibly never been higher.
White tailed deer are at numbers where they need management by controlling the numbers of antlerless deer (does) through special antlerless permits, with the money derived from these sales going directly back into the department. This translates into tons of naturally raised protein .
Moose, We live on the fringes of where Moose can naturally survive. Moose all along these latitudes have issues with this fact. Winter Ticks have decimated calf populations. The overlap of Moose with Whitetail Deer exposes them to brainworm, which is fairly common, and live without effect in Whitetails, but kills Moose. For Mr. Medwid, to say that Moose have somehow been mismanaged, by saying that the numbers have been higher in the past is disingenuous to say the least. The higher numbers facilitated the boom in tick numbers, thus triggering the resulting population crash. It had little or nothing to do with hunting, just as in Maine, or New Hampshire. He knows this. I suspect that he also knows that the only way to manage the Winter Tick problem at this time, for the herd’s own good, is to bring down the numbers of host animals. (Moose) There are biologists working on other ways to control Winter Ticks, but they are still in the experimental phase.
Black Bears ? According to Vt. Fish and Wildlife, from the mid 70s to the late 1990s there was a steady population of around 1500 animals in Vermont for the last 20 years that number has been between 4500 to 6500, trending more towards the upper figure. So doing the math that is ruffly 3, to 4 times the population in 40-50 years. Yup, another Fish and Wildlife success story.
Turkeys are also classified as “Big Game” in Vermont. What can you say about Turkey’s numbers? Since 31 wild Turkeys were reintroduced by the Vermont Fish and Game Department in 1969 and 1970, to around 50,000 today. Tell me that is not a success story !
Just for giggles, even though they are classified as “Furbearers” the non native, invasive Coyote has gone from being first observed in this state in the late 1940s to a point where there are so many they were classified as “vermin”. Anti- hunter/trappers will state that hunting these animals will not control them. Some will even tell you that by eliminating the Alpha male/female, you are unleashing lesser dominant examples to do the breeding, causing a less controlled population boom. I do not know this to be true, but if it is, does it not play into their anti-carnivore hunting agenda ? More carnivores is a good thing, right ?
Another furbearer that is undergoing a population boom is the Beaver. If you have not noticed a boom in the number of Beavers in Vermont, you have either not been outside in the last 10 years, or your seeing eye dog has not been trained to point them out. (a little tongue in cheek there !)
All in all it would be my conclusion that the professional biologists of our Fish and Wildlife Department have done, and I trust will continue to do, an outstanding job of managing the renewable resource that wildlife was meant to be, so why would I want to take a chance with an untested minor leaguer ? Answer, I don’t .
I would submit to you a large part of the increase in big game ,turkey, bear and deer comes from more land being posted against hunting and because the fickle nature of weather we haven’t had the killer winters we once had. The decline of hunter licences may well be those ,like us that have the opportunity to hunt in other states do so. I have a permanent licence in this state and I do hunt on our own property however I have much more success in Virginia where I could bring home as many as 6 deer per year, and they encourage you to shoot the does. I have never tagged out there but we generally bring home 4 or 5 in 10 days. If in fact hunting bear and coyote with dogs is abolished the nuisance animal complaints from those species will increase significantly OR a new disease will make it’s way here to kill the animals naturally
animal lovers should spend a day at a slaughter house and buy a prime rib for dinner after the visit
“a recent UVM report shows that the state is losing some 1500 acres of forest lands every year. ” This needs to be clarified: the number cited is “according to a new report released today by the Harvard Forest”. This number needs to be seriously scrutinized. Every time I drive through the state, I notice more and more agricultural land that has grown up to new forests. These are hundred acre plots. Some loss of forest land may be attributable to new solar and wind farms. Development of forest land into agriculture or buildings is heavily restricted by the laws on the books. Too much so, resulting in the housing shortage we are in. Most development takes place on existing developed land. We need to be careful accepting statements like these from people who do not show their work.
Don’t really care that license sales are not what they once were or that we are experiencing a “cultural shift”. People who move to Vermont should realize that this state is different than the state they came from and accept our way of life.. not try to destroy it. If by chance there were only 10 licensed hunters in the state of Vermont they should still have the right to hunt wild game.. It’s about management, tradition and access to healthy- locally sourced food. Non hunters should consider trying it. It’s a great way to experience our natural world and the payoff is very rewarding.. both at the table and the quality time spent outdoors.
Also important to consider that the increase of large game animals and predators like coyotes is largely a result of Vermont going from 2/3 deforested a mere 100+ years ago to now being at least 2/3 forested now. So I’m not buying the loss of habitat line. Fact is, animal populations easily rebounded as soon as trees returned to the once almost bare Vermont. There’s plenty of land to go around for man and beast. Let’s not forget that the catamount has even begun to return, despite the “official” narrative to the contrary.
Not torturing or slowly killing animals in inhumane, barbaric traps doesn’t “destroy” anything except the living, breathing animal caught suffering for hours or even days on end in a steely-jawed trap.
As far as VT’s highly “special” environs go, I presume many trappers haven’t ever stepped foot in the REAL wilds of the Northwest regions wherein Grizzlies, Polar Bears, & poisonous snakes abound – making hiking through the National Forest in VT a veritable cake walk. And even in those genuinely remote and forever wild regions – Americans, by a large majority, object to & oppose trapping. The minority herein and therein.
Guess you’ve never seen a newborn fawn eaten alive by a coyote… Don’t think they’re quite so worried about being “humane”. Maybe get outside a bit more and experience the real natural world. Nature works a little differently than Walt Disneys version.