Public Trust for Wildlife: it’s not about Pete the Moose
While the Japanese struggle to recover from the recent tsunami, Libyans fight in the streets, and Vermonters worry about the future of health care, I have been working on one seemingly small issue that actually has broad implications regarding the future of wildlife ownership and management in our small state. Before I tell this story, I want you to know that I am reviewing your e-mails, phone messages and talking with those of you visiting the State House regarding concerns about health care, and human service budget cuts. Much is still in flux at this point and I continue to share your concerns with legislative leadership. I expect some clarity on these issues within the next couple of weeks.
If one only catches sound bites, H.91. or “Public Trust bill, “ appears to be about whether a certain moose named “Pete” with friends on Facebook, gets a stay of execution or lives out his remaining years as a partially domesticated pet. That is not what the bill is about although I would currently guess that Pete is going to be just fine. H.91 puts in statute that the native fish and wildlife are collectively held by everyone as part of the public trust and cannot be reduced to private ownership.
The Public Trust Doctrine of wildlife is a bedrock concept of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and is why this country enjoys the greatest diversity, quality, and quantity of game animals and other wildlife in the world. There is increasing evidence that this model is under siege around the country as landowners restrict access to wildlife for personal profit. One way of reducing this likelihood is to formally put this trust relationship into statute. It is important that states not only define these resources as state held, but also mandate responsibility to maintain these resources, for the wildlife itself and for present and future generations. This bill does that.
H.91 was developed following public outrage from hunters, sportsmen and conservationists alike stemming from a deceptively small amendment to the Appropriations bill that slipped through in the final hours of the 2010 legislative session. The pressure to save the celebrity moose resulted in far greater reach, changing the status from public to private control, not just Pete, but all of the native deer and moose in an enclosed hunting facility.
It was the belief of many, and over time, myself, that Pete was simply a tool for media hype used by a very crafty facility owner in an effort to resist the Fish and Wildlife Department closing in on him for lack of a permit, poor fencing and unwillingness to work with the Department to come into compliance for many years. It also drew people away from the reality that Pete was living at a facility in which native and non-native game are hunted for a price.
Also at the heart of the problem here is the grave concern of increased risk of disease being transmitted from captive deer to our vulnerable native population. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), similar to mad cow disease, is an insidious disorder of deer, elk, and moose that is transferred through urine, feces, saliva, blood and food. It has no cure; no vaccine and can live in the soil and animals undetected for many years. CWD is not known to be transmissible to humans, but has had devastating effects on free-ranging deer in those states and provinces where it has been found. Captive hunt facilities and the captive deer trade have long been implicated in the transfer of this disease. There was conflicting testimony as to the degree of risk for Vermont. That Vermont is still free of CWD allows us to view this disease as a theoretical problem. In 2005, Oneida County in New York had a positive test for one deer in a captive hunt facility and two wild deer nearby. Vermont Commissioner Patrick Berry told us that his counterpart in Maryland facing their first outbreak said that we must do anything and everything we can to prevent this from ever happening.
The second part of the bill will be session law that puts the facility back under the jurisdiction of Fish and Wildlife and gives the owner a generous 5 years to bring the native white tail and moose at his facility to zero and sets up a system for disease surveillance.
One hunter who testified before our committee reminded us of the importance of keeping wild things wild and the need to educate the well meaning public about the wildlife from which we are growing so far away. I worry that my sons won’t have this, he said, that all of nature will be in a theme park, or experienced only through Internet or TV.
It is very unfortunate that this problem could not be resolved 10 years ago when the fence was erected, entrapping only 5-6 wild deer and moose. A positive outcome, however, is the public trust doctrine for wildlife will now become state law should the bill pass.