We are taking a moment before the snow melts revealing sheds, ice melts on our fishing spots and the turkeys start strutting to catch everyone up with some policy activity here in Maine. 

Legislature

The First Regular Session of the 132nd Legislature convened in December. Currently the Maine SLT is tracking nearly four dozen bill titles, but less than half of those bills have been published at this time. Bills that we have submitted testimony on so far have been:

• LD 95 - An Act to Amend and Simplify Certain Wildlife Laws- We supported this department omnibus bill cleaning up language references to previously changed law related to crossbows & expanded archery, making 2 day youth hunt permanent and added protection from location information request related to species of concern. Testimony LINK
• LD 183- An Act to Cap Publicly Owned Land Area at No More than 50 Percent of Any County- As defined in the bill, “publicly owned” would also include any public interest in conservation easements on private land, which could limit future land conservation efforts in Maine’s northern timberlands. This is like a bill that appeared in the previous session and did not make it out of committee. We submitted testimony in opposition along with many of our partners working in conservation. Next step for this bill is a yet to be scheduled work session by the Joint Committee for Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.   Testimony LINK
• LD 205- An Act to Amend the Bag Limit for Turkey- This bill seeks to set the bag limit for turkeys to be the same as Ruffed Grouse. Consistent with our support for the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, we testified that fish and wild resources belong to the public and supported science-based fish and wildlife management by DIFW. Testimony LINK

Upcoming bills related to access, that haven’t been published, that we are very interested in are:

• An Act to Extend Funding for the Land for Maine's Future Program
• An Act to Bolster the Land for Maine's Future Program
• Resolve, Directing the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to Establish a Working Group to Explore Opportunities to Work with Commercial Landowners on Public-Private Partnerships Designed to Maintain Public Access
• An Act to Study the Future of Outdoor Recreational Access in Maine

Upland Hunting Season Change

Back during the fall there was a rule making proposal to change Upland Game Seasons in response to LD 831- An Act Regarding Low Success Rate for Moose Hunting, a resolve directing DIFW to examine issues related to moose hunting seasons. A stakeholder group was convened and one recommendation was to modify the September upland hunting season. Using the moose take success data published by Maine IFW it was apparent that the decline in moose take began before the 2019 legislation and there was no evidence of a significant shift in success rate after the creating this opportunity. We also noted that the October bull-only week, which has always coincided with upland hunting, does not have a significantly different success rate than the September bull hunt. This led us to the conclusion that overlapping moose and upland season for a few days was not a driver for the long-term declines in moose hunt success. We submitted testimony (LINK HERE) based on this analysis and shared our data with partners at the Ruffed Grouse Society Chapter, who included our graphic in their testimony. As a result of overwhelming comments in opposition and very few in support of this proposal, the Department withdrew the proposal.

If you have questions or want to learn more about legislative issues please contact us at [email protected].

Events

Join New England BHA at Mast Landing Brewing Company- Freeport Taproom on March 20th for an awesome night of trivia. Come show your knowledge of hunting, angling, conservation and wildlife. Take a chance on raffles and have a good time with others passionate about wild public lands, waters and wildlife! Click HERE for more info and purchase tickets.

The outdoors based trivia game, MC'd by a professional trivia master, is open to those that purchase a ticket below. Funds from ticket sales help Maine BHA continue to be the voice of your public lands.

Event Sponsor, Walker Knife Company has donated a $200 gift certificate that will be raffled off during the event!

Things the Maine State Team is planning:

• Spring Public Land hands on stewardship project. (If you see an opportunity for a project please contact us at [email protected])
• Summer Sporting Clays for Conservation Event.
• Maine Outdoor Partners Landowner Appreciation Day project.
• Regional Pint nights.

Please contact us at [email protected] if you’d like to be more involved in event planning or other BHA activities in Maine.