A recent letter to the Addison Independent included a great deal of misinformation about newly proposed legislation, S.258. The writer claimed that the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board will be “dismantled,” and that those not connected to outdoor pursuits will become the sole decisionmakers for fish and wildlife management as part of an anti-fishing, anti-hunting, and anti-trapping plan. 

S.258 is none of these things.

If you read Bill S.258, you will see that it proposes to change the Fish and Wildlife Board from a rulemaking to an advisory body, and to prohibit one form of hunting — hunting coyotes with hounds — a practice that causes property rights violations and damage for property owners in Addison County and throughout the state.

Why is changing how the Fish and Wildlife Board functions needed? Currently, the board approves all regulations for fish and wildlife management. The Department of Fish & Wildlife has authority for all other regulations. This is not typical for boards in Vermont. There are approximately 300 boards, and only about 20 of them have rule-making authority. Most are advisory. The bill will centralize decision-making authority with the Fish & Wildlife Department, staffed with professional biologists and specialists.

The current Fish and Wildlife Board has 14 members, all of whom are hunters, trappers and/or fishers. They are appointed by and through a process known only to the Governor. S.258 requires diversity in the composition of a 12-member advisory Fish and Wildlife Board appointed by the Fish & Wildlife Department Commissioner, the Speaker of the House and the legislative Committee on Committees through a written application process. The bill states that there is “the need for the Board to include members of the public representing both consumptive uses and non-consumptive uses of wildlife”. The bill recognizes that as increasing numbers of people in Vermont and the country engage in non-consumptive activities such as wildlife watching, their voices should be part of the rulemaking process, and not excluded as they are now.

To underscore the point, the Fish and Wildlife Board is not being done away with, it is being changed to an advisory board with more diverse perspectives on fish and wildlife management.

Unfortunately, the writer also mischaracterized the bill as the work of the “radical closet animal rights group called Protect Our Wildlife” (POW). First, POW is not a “closet” group plotting on the dark web. It operates openly with a mission to “make Vermont a more humane place for wildlife” and is supported by over 3,000 Vermonters, including hunters. POW recently held a gathering in Middlebury to discuss its work, which was attended by both hunters and wildlife conservation supporters from around Addison County.

The bill is the work of and was drafted by its sponsors — our Addison County senators, Chris Bray and Ruth Hardy, and also Windsor County Senators Richard McCormack and Rebecca White. As such, the bill reflects the Senators’ views about the direction of fish and wildlife management in Vermont.

I applaud them for working to create a more inclusive process for fish and wildlife management with respect to the board, and for addressing significant concerns of their constituents with respect to coyote hounding.

And yes, even though I live in Huntington, which is in Chittenden County, through the workings of legislative districting in Vermont, my senators are from Addison County!

Barbara Felitti

Huntington