Yes, it’s that time again. Time for those of interest to apply for a chance at a moose permit to hunt moose in Maine. Visit this link at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) website and fill out your application.
And while you’re at the site, take a couple extra minutes to contact the MDIFW Commissioner and let him know that all the money you’ve contributed to be used for growing and maintaining a moose herd isn’t being spent for your benefit. Maine has for years stated there were only 29,000 moose and they carefully thought the process through before deciding how many permits to allot. Well, now that more of our money has been spent the past three years to count moose and MDIFW has decided there are really 76,000 moose, MDIFW, (after giving it careful thought?) has decided to allot an additional, whopping, 430 permits. Golly! Ain’t that swell?
Let’s see. My math is a bit rusty but rattling off some numbers in an empty head I think this shows somewhere around a 60% increase in the estimated number of moose, and yet only perhaps a 12% increase in permits. Does that make sense to you? Do you feel like you’re getting screwed over?
According to the Boston Globe, Lee Kantar, MDIFW’s head moose biologist, explains why hunters, who have footed the moose recovery bill for what now seems a bazillion years, can’t have but a scant 430 permits:
“What some people fail to understand is we have very clear responsibilities for managing moose for a variety of publics, not just hunting,” Kantar said. “Wildlife viewing stands on equal ground, so you need to be cautious on your permit levels, and that means accounting for your unknowns,”
So, let’s get this straight. For the past several years MDIFW believed the state had 29,000 moose and could comfortably (“accounting for your unknowns’) issue 3,725 moose permits. But now with MDIFW believing there are 76,000 moose, only 4,155 permits can be issued…….I assume to make all the rest of the “on equal ground” moose available to the “on equal ground” moose gawkers who contribute nothing to the growth and maintenance of the herd. Oh, wait. That’s right they pay the governor a handful of tax dollars, that, incidentally, do nothing to help out the moose herd. Shucks! Did somehow those “unknowns” get pulled out of somebody’s dark side or is this placating the environmentalists out of fear they will get offended if Maine decides to kill a handful more moose?
Maine sportsmen deserve better than this slap in the face and kick in the groin. Some have applied for a moose permit since the lottery’s inception and have never been drawn. And this is the treatment they get for their persistence? You can’t hunt them even after your investment, but we’ll make sure the moose gawkers get more “equal ground” than hunters get. Pathetic!
