Maine IFW Considering Budget Cuts That Would Drastically Alter Deer Management

I read an article in the Bangor Daily News recently about proposed cuts being considered at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Among those cuts as listed by Kevin Miller were:

Elimination of 10 game warden positions out of 124 statewide.

— Loss of at least three biologists.

— Discontinuation of tagging stations for deer and other big game.

— Elimination of DIF&W’s deputy commissioner position.

Needless to say this didn’t sit well with me and the more I considered the consequences of such actions the more upset I became.

First, let’s consider the facts when it comes to the budget of the MDIFW and what Gov. Baldacci is asking MDIFW to do. Baldacci is asking every department to cut 10% from its budget. MDIFW’s budget is roughly $24 million dollars with all but around $3 million of that coming from license fees, etc.. In fairness, shouldn’t the governor be asking MDIFW for a 10% reduction of the $3 million that comes from general taxation? This would result in a budget decrease of around $300,000. This is ridiculous and becomes obvious that Baldacci may be more interested in getting back the $3 million to fund other departments.

There is certainly argument that can be made for each of the four proposed cuts listed above. To eliminate 10 Maine Warden positions may end up costing the state of Maine more than it thinks it is going to save. The Maine Warden Service has far too much territory to cover now and the demands put on them by other law enforcement agencies, along with search and rescue duties and policing snowmobiles and ATVs, stretching the department that much more could be quite costly. With a shrinking economy and a decrease in law enforcement, poaching will take a spike costing Maine taxpayers money in the end.

Losing biologists only cuts into the needed scientists to collect and process data that is vital to proper management of our wildlife. To go hand in hand with this cut proposal, to call for the elimination of tagging stations would be extremely detrimental to the deer, bear and moose management programs in place.

A close examination of the management plans, one can clearly see that the years of success and accurate data available to biologists has been made possible because of a program that relies on every aspect of information gathering. The information gathered by biologists at tagging stations is critical to understanding what’s going on with our game species.

I contacted Lee Kantar, head deer and moose biologist at Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and asked him what kind of impact losing tagging station information would have on his ability to manage game.

Given the current economic times there have been internal discussions on this issue. I do not believe anything has been resolved. We are trying to evaluate this potential shift. I agree with you that it is problematic. Mandatory registration of deer enables us to have high confidence in the deer kill by sex and age (adult,fawn; we use our biological data collection to correct for errors in sex and age and figure age distribution as well, i.e., adult, yearling, fawn) by Wildlife Management District. This is critical to how we manage deer in Maine and essential to the Any-deer Permit system. A change to some form of electronic registration (be that internet or phone), would require estimating the harvest; that may be fine statewide, but by WMD it would be incredibly difficult. Return rates in other states have been poor, other states return rates our enough to provide statistically reliable estimates of statewide harvest, again when estimating at smaller units, WMDs, this task becomes much more difficult.

I agree with Kantar’s assessment of what probably would happen. In examining the processes used in other states, some are extremely poor, resulting in scanty data and making it nearly impossible to have any confidence at all in the state of game species. When we consider some of the critical decisions being made, such as Endangered Species Act lawsuits, etc., how can there be legitimate decisions if the information that is being used to render these decisions is seriously flawed and/or lacking in any credibly backed scientific data?

As Maine is considering a decision on another lawsuit to end trapping in order to protect the Canada lynx, imagine the skewed information that would be bantered around the court room if the fish and game experts have no good means of having reliable data.

Another aspect to consider with the elimination of tagging stations and the implementation of some program of requiring hunters to report their takes, is the availability of complete and timely data. With the current process, MDIFW has so much data to consider before making decisions such as the allotment of “Any-Deer” permits. “Any-Deer” permits is the major tool used by biologists to manipulate deer populations.

History from other states have shown that in order to get this “required” reporting of data from hunters, they have to not issue another hunting license until a report is received. This could result in data not being available until a year after the fact or longer I suppose in some cases.

The bottom line is this. Only about 10% of the MDIFW budget comes from general taxation. If Baldacci insists that MDIFW cut its budget 10% then essentially we will lose the money that comes from taxation. That deficit could be made up in other ways.

If hunters, fishermen, trappers, etc. understand how the fish and game functions, I believe they are willing to make up some of that cost with a fee increase. Pressure should then be put back onto the Baldacci administration to put more of law enforcement and search and rescue expenses in other departments. There also has to be better ways of retrieving the costs of search and rescue, etc.

If Gov. Baldacci insists that MDIFW cut its budget 10%, we have to wonder if his motives aren’t simply to cut MDIFW’s budget and using that department to help fund other departments he may be more partial to.

It would be a real shame to be witness to cuts that would seriously change the structure of how MDIFW biologists have collected and utilized data in what is viewed by many as one of the best deer management programs in the country.

Tom Remington