In the recent past, I have written quite a bit about my concern for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s (MDIFW) change of direction in their new deer management plans. Those plans seem to include a shift from bothering much about counting deer to a non-accountable waste of time concerning themselves with a general good health of game animals – and that Agenda 21 term of “sustainable” that everybody is in love with. (You can find some of my articles that cover this environmentalist-shift to game management here, here, here, here.)
V. Paul Reynolds says that MDIFW is “falling short of goals” when it comes to deer management and cites the previous 15-year plan that set as a goal a population of deer at 384,000 – cough, choke, spit, laugh. Reynolds sobering words remind us of the realities of the actual estimated deer population – “less than half that.”
Reynolds doesn’t think a management plan void of counting is worth much either. He asks, “in the end isn’t it the number of deer that we have or don’t have that is at the core of professional whitetail management?”
It has appeared to me right from the get-go that this new deer management plan is a better way to avoid responsibility and accountability when deer management goals call for 384,000 animals and the failure in that is so great less than half that number exist.
According to Reynolds, the new management plan targets a “healthy” deer population of around 210,000 by 2033. All MDIFW has to do is hope like hell their prized “Climate Change” allows them to somehow maintain the terrible number of deer now. At the rate things have gone, we can expect a deer population of around 105,000 by 2033.
In reality, I think what is reported that an assistant wildlife director said if more than a mouthful and an honest assessment tells the real story: “The goals for deer population management outlined in the updated 2017 Big Game plan are to maintain a healthy and sustainable deer population, rather than limiting a particular WMD to a hard target density objective — like in the past couple of plans. This allows for greater flexibility in management actions to adapt to changing landscapes, climate fluctuations, social issues, etc.”
Whenever any government leader/employee uses the term “flexibility” you should know by now that that means we’re all about the get taken to the cleaners with no accounting on their part. In other words, this new plan allows MDIFW to do just about anything or nothing at all, and because they have issued themselves “flexibility” they have not failed at their job – a well-defined recipe for FAILURE.
Along with this flexibility, they have ensured that there are scapegoats (the dog ate my homework) – “changing landscapes, climate fluctuations, social issues..” And the big one here is the last – “etc.” Evidently “etc” means they just fill in the blank.
Environmentalism sucks!! Its purpose and plan is to manage for scarcity so that nobody benefits in any way and the wage earner and retirement pension seeker is not held accountable in any way. Oh, America! Land of the free…loader.
The last nail is driven in the coffin and as the death of deer hunting and other game animals falls upon our society, the government agency in charge can say, we were just following the 15-year management plan.
