Time to speak up – if you care about big game animal management

bear DIF&W imageIf you care about the way big game animals are managed in Maine, please make a special effort to get to one of these public meetings to express your opinions. Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will host the meetings, an unprecedented effort to reach out to sportsmen, landowners, and the general public and give all of you a chance to be heard on these important issues and challenges.

This will only be valuable if you get to a meeting and share your opinions.

In two of my outdoor news column recently, I’ve reported on this process, including information about fascinating surveys conducted by Mark Duda of Resource Management, which you can now access on DIF&W’s website. If you haven’t read those two columns, please do so.

Sometime soon, I will report on presentations made to the Big Game Steering Committee by DIF&W’s wildlife biologists on current plans and issues with the four big game animals: deer, moose, bear, and turkeys.

Three of the public meetings will focus on bear management and issues, and three will offer you an opportunity to comment on management of all of the four big game animals. Here are the dates, times, and locations for those meetings. And yes, I understand that you may not live anywhere near these locations (neither do I), but let’s all get there!

Bear Public Meetings

  • March 16, 2016 6-9 pm
    Embassy Suites by Hilton – Katahdin Room, 1050 Westbrook Street, Portland
  • March 16, 2016 6-9 pm
    Northeastland Hotel – Red Room, 436 Maine Street, Presque Isle
  • March 30, 2016 6-9 pm
    Black Bear Inn – Blue Room, 4 Godfrey Drive, Orono

Big Game Public Meetings

  • March 19, 2016 1-4 pm
    Embassy Suites by Hilton – Katahdin Room, 1050 Westbrook Street, Portland
  • March 19, 2016 1-4 pm
    Northeastland Hotel – Red Room, 436 Maine Street, Presque Isle
  • April 2, 2016 6-9 pm
    Black Bear Inn – Blue Room, 4 Godfrey Drive, Orono
George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.