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Colonel Joel Wilkinson stepped up to straighten out confusion over Maine’s deer driving law. In April, Captain Chris Cloudier of the Maine Warden Service told the legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee that deer driving is illegal even for two hunters.

For more than a decade, an exception in the deer driving law has provided that, “a group of 3 or more persons may hunt together as long as they do not use noisemaking devices.”            Maine game wardens have never liked the law change but have not cited a group of 3 or fewer hunters for driving deer since the exception was added to the law.

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SAM’s two longest serving board members have resigned. Jim Gorman and Jim Hilly served together for 22 years, longer than any SAM board members in the organization’s history. Gorman cited SAM’s transition “in a new direction” for his resignation.

At the same time, new board member Amos Eno also resigned. Amos founded and directs the Resources First Foundation, described as an organization “founded in 2000 to support and develop conservation programs to strengthen and sustain rural communities, economies and green businesses, and to support private sector conservation initiatives by supporting the multi-faceted conservation needs of private landowners.”

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It was all about moose this afternoon when the legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee met in work session to tackle two moose bills. One was mine, LD 177, sponsored at my request by Senator Tom Saviello. The other, LD 738, was sponsored by Senator Troy Jackson on behalf of a few sporting camp owners.

The committee had asked that Lee Kantar, DIF&W’s moose biologist, attend the work session to answer questions. For the work session, and in response to comments from committee members at earlier work sessions, I prepared an amendment to my bill that directed the department to increase the moose harvest to 10 percent of the total population over the next three years. I will attach my work session memo and amendment to this column.

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A remarkable thing happened last week at the legislature. The Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee stepped up to direct a major expansion of turkey hunting opportunity. This particular committee is showing a lot more independence of thought and action than I’ve seen in the past, and its refreshing and encouraging.

Here’s how it happened. A flood of turkey bills were submitted, including one sponsored at my request by Senator Tom Saviello, calling for a variety of actions to recruit more turkey hunters and increase the turkey harvest. Three legislators who have suffered losses on their farms because of turkeys, spoke forcefully for their own bills: Representatives Jeff Timberlake, Russell Black, and Craig Hickman. I reported on these bills and their public hearings earlier in the session.

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            The legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee is showing a lot of interest in awarding more moose permits to stimulate a distressed hunting economy, maximize the opportunity for Mainers to hunt the state’s biggest game animal, and begin partnering with the hunting industry.

            Two concepts will be central to a work session discussion next Tuesday (May 14): substantially increasing permits, and providing a small number of those permits to licensed sporting camps and lodges that are currently hosting moose hunters. The committee has asked DIF&W’s moose biologist Lee Kantar to attend the work session to answer their questions.

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Ten years after Maine voters defeated an attempt to ban bear hunting with bait and dogs, a new ballot measure on the same issues may be on the way for 2014. The Humane Society of United States has filed its intentions to initiate a new bear referendum with Maine’s Secretary of State. HSUS was the organization that placed these issues on the ballot in 2004 and spent millions trying to convince Maine voters to support them.

HSUS has also proposed a bear bill in this session of the legislature. Their bill, LD 1474, sponsored by Representative Denise Harlow of Portland, will be scheduled for a public hearing later this month. It would prohibit bear hunting with dogs and bear trapping, eliminate any chance of Maine restoring a spring bear hunt, prohibit the sale of bear galls, and substantially increase penalties for bear poaching.

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For fifty years, sportsmen have been seeking public support for the Fish and Wildlife Department. This afternoon, we were at it again, testifying before the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee in favor of LD 219, a proposal of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to direct a portion of revenues generated from energy infrastructure corridors to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife with an annual cap of $5 million.

The committee members expressed great interest in the proposal and asked a lot of question of those who testified favor of SAM’s bill and the bill’s sponsor, Rep.Mike Shaw. Testifying for the bill was Dave Trahan of SAM, Jen Gray of Maine Audubon, Tom Abello of the Nature Conservancy, Dylan Voorhees of the Natural Resources of Maine, and me.

Several opponents spoke, although most of their testimony was technical, involving the complexity of the energy infrastructure statute.