SWOAM Advocacy
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- Natural Resource Agencies Consolidation 2008
- LD 347 An Act to Improve Landowner Relations
- LD 736 An Act to Protect Small Woodland Oweners
- LD 737 An Act to Promote Forest Management Planning and Certification
- LD 307 An Act to Enhance Land Use Opportunities for Landowners
- Sunday Hunting
Executive Director
Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine
In Opposition to LD 307
An Act to Enhance Land Use Opportunities for Landowners
March 1, 2007
The issue of Sunday hunting is one of, if not the most divisive issue between landowners and hunters; between hunters and the general public; and between hunters themselves.
Most of you will remember the bitter fight on the issue just two years ago, while those of you who have been here for awhile will no doubt remember other attempts to provide for hunting on Sunday. In fact, by some accounts this is the 26th time the Legislature has considered this issue in the past 30 years. Each time, the Legislature has rejected Sunday hunting.
On the surface, we can understand why some landowners, non landowners and hunters would consider this a good idea. But what might enhance opportunities for some, will clearly reduce opportunities for many others. This idea would bring Sunday hunting to every community in Maine. Sunday is the one day of the week when landowners, recreationalists and the general public can enjoy the outdoors with a sense of safety and relative quiet. It has been that way for the last 125 years. In fact, many, many hunters have told us how much they value Sunday as a non-hunting day. This landowner/hunter/public accommodation has stood the test of time. Why alter that balance and set that accommodation into a tailspin?
We can only imagine how impractical law would be to administer. There will be others, including the department, who can speak to this better than we can. But if there are extra department resources available, those should be put toward working to resolve existing problems between landowners and users and not to create new ones.
If one of the goals of this legislation is to create more land open to hunting, we believe it will have the opposite affect. There may be some landowners who will be motivated to open their land or be willing to keep their land open for the chance to hunt on Sunday. But, there will be many more landowners concerned about keeping hunters off their property who will feel compelled to clearly mark their land. And we don’t imagine many of those signs will say hunting allowed except on Sunday.
While we are not a hunting organization, we have many hunters in our organization. In fact more than half our Board members are hunters. And we support hunting and always have. Just a few weeks ago I stood before you and stated that we were on record supporting an expansion of the moose hunt southward and committed to working with the Department of IF&W if the expansion takes place to help implement it. In fact hunting opportunities have expanded tremendously in the past several years. We now have spring and fall turkey hunting; the muzzle loading season has been expanded; we have youth hunting days; we have an increased archery season; bonus deer permits and many others.
This legislation would support setting hunting seasons based on whether someone owns land or not. While a novel approach, we don’t think that is sound public policy. And we can only imagine the reaction of non-land owning hunters to passage of this legislation. What about those hunters and potential hunters?
We have heard that allowing landowner to hunt on Sunday is a landowner rights issue. An interesting twist. One of the problems with that argument is the landowner does not own the animals/game. What exactly is the right? Some of the long time proponents of Sunday hunting who now call it a “landowner right” had a very different view of landowner rights when Maine passed a law several years ago making it a crime for landowners to charge for hunting. Maine is one of, if not the only State in the nation, with such a “landowner rights” law.
So what has 26 failed attempts to pass Sunday hunting taught us? Well, at least three things seem pretty clear: First, at best, only half the hunters in Maine support Sunday hunting; Second, the majority of landowners do not support Sunday hunting; and Third, the public overwhelming opposes Sunday hunting. So why do we keep fighting over an issue that so few support? That is a question we ask every time it comes up.
The anger and frustration from past battles on this issue runs deep and wide. Repeated attempts to get Sunday hunting passed in some form simply continues to fuel anger and frustration on both sides of the issue. If you want to fuel conflict between hunters, landowners, recreationalists and the general public, Sunday hunting is the issue. This is the wrong issue, the wrong time and the wrong approach to preserving and enhancing outdoor recreational opportunities for all Maine people (and visitors). There is a diverse group of interests, many of whom you will hear from this afternoon in opposition to this bill, working hard to preserve many of Maine’s great outdoor traditions and opportunities who see Sunday hunting as the wrong direction to go.
We urge you to reject this legislation.
