Advisory Council Meeting Minutes
May 24, 2007 – 9:30 a.m.
Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Headquarters
Upstairs Conference Room, 284 State Street, Augusta
Attending:
Roland D. Martin, Commissioner
Andrea Erskine, Assistant to the Commissioner
Ken Elowe, Director, Bureau of Resource Management
Marc Michaud, Director of Information and Education
John Boland, Director of Fisheries Operations
Mark Stadler, Wildlife Division Director
Gregg Sanborn, Major, Warden Service
Joe Dembeck, Research Biologist, Fisheries
Becky Orff, Secretary and Recorder
Council Members
Bos Savage
Leo Kieffer
Joe Clark
Stephen Philbrick
Sheri Oldham
Mike Witte
Ray Poulin
Al Goodwin
Frank Dunbar
Ron Usher
Guests
Don Kleiner, ME Bowhunters Assoc. & NWTF
Skip Trask, ME Trappers Assoc. & MPGA
I. Call to Order
Mr. Savage called the Council meeting to order.
II. Introductions
Introductions were made.
III. Acceptance of Minutes of Previous Council Meeting
Motion made by Mr. Clark and seconded by Mr. Goodwin to accept the minutes of the previous Council meeting as written.
Vote: Unanimous – minutes accepted as written.
III-A. Election of Chair and Vice-Chair
Chair
A motion was made by Mr. Philbrick and seconded by Mrs. Oldham to nominate Leo Kieffer for Council Chair.
A motion was made by Mr. Clark and seconded by Mr. Poulin that motions cease.
Vote: unanimous – Leo Kieffer elected as Council Chair
Vice-Chair
A motion was made by Mr. Usher and seconded by Mrs. Oldham to nominate Joe Clark for Council Vice-Chair.
A motion was made by Mr. Poulin and seconded by Mrs. Oldham that motions cease.
Vote: unanimous – Joe Clark elected as Council Vice-Chair
IV. Rulemaking
A. Step 3
1. 2007 Any-deer Permits
Mr. Stadler stated that there were no modifications to the proposal since Step 2. The Department, at Step 1, originally proposed a permit allocation of 74, 945 permits and at the time we mentioned the fact that the winter had not ended and we would be reassessing the winter severity and that might have bearing on the 2007 allocations. End of winter, early spring was nasty and as a result of that our deer management system recommended a reduction in the number of any-deer permits being issued in 2007 to compensate for winter losses. Therefore the total number of permits being recommended is 66, 275.
Commissioner Martin stated that he had not received any comments from Council members prior to the meeting. The Department would propose to move forward with the initiative as presented.
Mrs. Oldham motioned to accept the proposal and Mr. Philbrick seconded that.
Vote: unanimous, proposal accepted.
2. Marsh Island Archery Deer Hunting
Mr. Stadler stated that the Department and the town of Orono and the City of Old Town had been working to try to resolve a situation involving an overabundant deer population. Recently, the Department received letters from Orono and Old Town expressing their willingness to go forward with rulemaking to address the overabundant deer situation on Marsh Island. The proposal was in two portions. Marsh Island was a WMA closed to hunting and the rule would open Marsh Island to archery hunting. The second component was to include the Marsh Island area in the Bangor/Veazie expanded archery area. A public hearing was held on May 9, 2007 in Old Town at the Public Library. There were a number of folks from Old Town city government in attendance. A representative from the University of Maine was also there. Since that time, and within the public comment period, the Commissioner had received a number of petitions in opposition to the hunt and also a letter from the University of Maine (UMO).
Commissioner Martin stated that Mr. Clark had attended the public hearing and asked him to comment.
Mr. Clark stated that at the hearing he heard a lot of support for bowhunting on Marsh Island. Many stories were told about the overabundance of deer in the Marsh Island area. It was very well attended not only by the City of Old Town, but also representatives from the town of Orono and also the Chief of UMO’s security department. The Secretary of State, Matt Dunlap was also in attendance. They had a lot of institutional memory of how long this had been going on. In the packet there were comments against it, but at that meeting of 22 or so people the majority of them were in favor of the proposal.
Commissioner Martin stated the proposal was initiated by the Department in conjunction with Orono and Old Town. There was a lot of support from town government. Until he received a letter from Robert Kennedy, President of UMO he was prepared to move forward with the proposal. Mr. Kennedy had asked to be given an opportunity to meet with the Department. Out of professional courtesy he wanted to set up a meeting to discuss his concerns.
Commissioner Martin asked that the Council take no action on the proposal that day and a tabling motion be made.
Mr. Philbrick stated it was nice that we received the letter from Mr. Kennedy, but were we putting ourselves in a position now where Step 3 became an opportunity for other folks to submit comments?
Commissioner Martin stated no, the comment period deadline was May 21 and he would not entertain any additional comments. The letter from Mr. Kennedy was received on May 17. Had it been received on the 22nd for example it would not have been discussed.
Mr. Kieffer asked how much of the land on the island was University owned?
Mr. Stadler stated it was substantial, but he would have to do some research for the exact acreage.
A motion was made by Mr. Poulin and seconded by Mr. Savage to table the proposal.
Vote: 9 in favor, 1 opposed – proposal tabled.
B. Step 2
1. Fisher/Marten Trapping Season
Mr. Stadler stated that over the last couple of years the Department had been concerned that we have a declining fisher population. The Department had been in discussions with the Maine Trappers Association (MTA) at the annual meeting and what had come out of that collaborative effort with MTA and the Department was the rulemaking proposal being presented. Basically this was a reduction in the fisher/marten season to a 1-month season that would run from November 15 – December 15.
At Step 1, Council member Mr. Goodwin requested some data on the fisher harvest by WMD. Mr. Stadler went over the handouts with the group (see packet). Fisher populations had also declined in NH and NB. NH trappers were pursuing a reduced seasonal bag limit of 5 fisher per trapper.
Council Member Comments and Questions
Mr. Savage asked if we had any sense as to why the decline was happening?
Mr. Stadler stated there was a host of reasons. Some of it could be habitat changes, trapping pressure in certain areas and those types of things. It was interesting that this was also occurring in a wider range than just Maine.
Mrs. Oldham stated that she knew this was a compromise proposal; did the Department think that this compromise would significantly improve fisher populations?
Mr. Stadler stated that it was a workable attempt and everyone concurred that if this did not achieve what we were trying to do, we would come back and review it.
Mr. Philbrick asked what the trapper numbers looked like. Was there a decline in trapper numbers? Was it fairly steady with the take numbers?
Mr. Stadler stated that we realized effort, gas prices, etc. had bearing in this. The consensus of the trapping community and Department staff was in concurrence that we were seeing a decline in the population. It was not just driven by effort or gas prices.
Mr. Philbrick stated trapper numbers…do we have more trappers, less trappers, same amount?
Mr. Trask stated he wasn’t sure the numbers had changed all that much. In recent years the market had improved somewhat. There was probably as much if not more pressure in the last 2 or 3 years than there had been previously. With this particular issue, trappers were all over the place. In some areas trappers didn’t see the declining population and in other areas there were good trappers that were hardly catching anything. There was a general consensus through much of the state that there was definitely something going on with fisher. Mr. Trask was not convinced it was trapper related. He knew the fisher numbers were down, and the Department did not have many options available to them to try to bring that population back.
Mr. Philbrick stated we were seeing a decline in hunting licenses being purchased, fishing licenses; were we seeing a decline in trapping licenses?
Mr. Trask stated no. That number was staying fairly consistent in recent years.
Mr. Kieffer stated that as far as marten were concerned we had to issue specific tags to each trapper. Had the number of marten tags declined, increased or stayed constant over the last 5 years?
Mr. Stadler stated that everyone received 25 marten tags with their license and that was the limit. We had discussed a similar limit on fisher, but that was not a preferred option at this time.
Mr. Kieffer asked if the number of trappers that actually trapped marten remained constant or increased or declined based on the marten tags that were issued? Not all trappers trapped marten.
Mr. Stadler stated that information was available.
Commissioner Martin stated that in response to the information that was requested, this proposal would be seen again next month at Step 2. Data would be sent to Council members regarding marten trapper numbers over the last 5 years.
Mr. Trask stated that the trappers recommended a shorter season and they kind of considered two options; would they rather see a limit or a reduced season. They were pretty much overwhelmingly in favor of the reduced season. They selected the middle 4 weeks. Even though the rule put marten in that same season, the rule itself really was designed to impact fisher. If you were going to shorten the season on fisher, you almost had to for marten because the incidentals would be outrageously high.
Mr. Savage stated that the way it was written, did it work? The top paragraph overlapped the bottom.
Mr. Trask stated he thought there was a language issue there. It kind of implied anything caught during the season would have to be turned in.
Mr. Witte had a question regarding the incidental catch language that it must be turned over to an agent of the Commissioner. Who would be the agents that could take the animal?
Mr. Elowe stated that usually an agent of the Commissioner meant a game warden or a biologist.
Mr. Witte asked what would happen to the animals once they were turned over to an agent.
Mr. Elowe stated that many times the skins would be used for educational purposes. It depended on how many were taken in. We had the same provision in place for the early fox and coyote season already.
2. Expanded Fall Turkey Season
Mr. Elowe stated the Department had been working on this since November/December. There was a piece of legislation that was also interested in fall turkey hunting that we had in session with our Fish and Wildlife Committee. We had been expanding our opportunity for turkey hunting in general over the last couple of years so that now the issues of keeping the quality of the hunt in the spring and in terms of numbers of turkeys and tags available and the noninterference between hunters, those had been issues, as well as keeping landowners happy because they support turkey hunting in Maine. We’ve been increasing to the point where now everyone can buy a permit and it seems to be working well. With that in place, its time to expand the fall opportunity. We’ve had an archery only fall season for a number of years; we felt we could offer a week long gun season and the proposal did that. This was something that our Committee was interested in also and during that discussion with the Committee we floated this proposal to them. They liked the proposal and said we could go ahead with our rulemaking. We didn’t know exactly what the effort would be, but a week long gun season during October was doable biologically. We were only offering it in the WMDs where we felt the turkey density was sufficient to support the effort that might be expended against it.
Council Member Comments and Questions
Mrs. Oldham asked about turkey hunting with dogs. Was this because of the season when this would be occurring?
Mr. Elowe stated partially. The spring hunt, there was no real reason to have dogs and there were a lot of reasons not to. It was a different hunt altogether. In the fall you were usually breaking apart flocks, but it also occurred during the bird season. We didn’t feel there was any biological reason to say if you were out partridge or woodcock hunting and you came across a turkey and wanted to take it and you happened to have your dog with you that there was any reason why you should refrain.
Mr. Kleiner stated that to add to that, there was tremendous discussion amongst the NWTF about that. There was, apparently, tradition in other states further to the south and west on using dogs to break up a flock and then hunt them back in. It’s not in New England. There aren’t any adjoining states even that do it. It had been a good discussion, and he felt there was no reason not to allow dogs.
Mr. Kieffer stated as he said last month, he had questioned shooting a turkey out of a tree, if that was very sportsman like or not and whether we would be criticized for allowing that.
Mr. Elowe stated that whatever hunting methods pertained in the spring would pertain in the fall with the exception of the use of dogs.
Mr. Clark stated that with expanded opportunity we should look at the dwindling population if that ever happened like we had with the deer population in northern Maine.
Mr. Elowe stated that we had density estimates, but the biological background to the proposal was that we had to have a certain density of turkeys to support a fall gun season and we hadn’t proposed it in areas that were lower than that. If we dropped below that density we would not support gun hunting in that WMD.
Commissioner Martin stated that items 1 and 2 under Step 2 would be seen again on June 20, at Step 2 again. They would hopefully be seen at Step 3 in July. Traditionally, a July meeting was not held but this year for a multitude of reasons one was being considered.
3. Ruffed Grouse Season Petition
Mrs. Erskine stated she had received legitimate petitions from two parts of the state, one from a group in Aroostook County and one from Washington County. Two public hearings had been scheduled, one for June 12 in Calais and one for June 27 in Presque Isle.
Council Member Comments and Questions
Mrs. Oldham suggested that there be a public hearing on the issue in central or southern Maine. The hearings were being held where the petitions came from, but she had received a number of phone calls and e-mails in opposition to taking the season away.
Mr. Kleiner stated in all the stuff he did, the proposal had generated a lot of calls.
Commissioner Martin asked Mrs. Erskine to see Mrs. Oldham about setting up a public hearing in her area.
Mr. Clark asked where the petition signatures originated from.
Mr. Kieffer stated the petition originated in Houlton, but it migrated to Washington County. He had not received any calls regarding the December grouse season.
Mr. Clark asked why a public hearing was being held in Presque Isle when the discussion came from the Houlton area?
Commissioner Martin stated a dentist who lived in Houlton but had a Camp Downeast in the Danforth area initiated the petition. A lot of his customers were residents of Houlton and the Caribou/Presque Isle area. Commissioner Martin stated that if we held a public hearing in Calais, we would get that group and also the group from northern, central and southern Aroostook by holding one in Presque Isle. They may not be in favor of the petition. For the same reasons that Mrs. Oldham stated, he would not object to having another public hearing in the Waterville area.
Mr. Philbrick asked if we responded to public comments, and used one of the e-mails in the packet as an example.
Mrs. Erskine stated that generally we do not respond to those unless they specifically asked for materials to be sent to them.
Mrs. Oldham stated that she assumed that at the public hearings the biology staff would present the same information to the public that the Council received.
4. Furbearer Trapping Rule Changes
Mr. Elowe stated the rule was putting into effect some items that we’ve had as recommendations to trappers over the last few years, mostly to protect lynx and eagles. The first paragraph dealt with the use of bait and how it had to be covered to be not visible from above, and this was to protect birds that hunted primarily by sight. Virtually all bird related incidental takes, especially eagles, had been associated with uncovered bait. This probably would eliminate most if not all of those eagle catches.
Mr. Elowe stated the second paragraph dealt with an issue that had come up as a recommendation on how to keep lynx out of primarily fisher and marten sets with conibears. It was only in those districts where we had lynx, WMDs 1 – 11. We had put in some language to accept conibears on the ground; basically it got conibears off the ground, 4 feet above the ground, smaller diameter trees and poles so cats were less likely to climb them and get into the conibear. There was an exception for conibears used partially or completely covered by water. We had been having discussions with the Maine Trappers Association (MTA) regarding language. We had received some comments (5), which were provided to the Council.
Council Member Comments and Questions
Mr. Kieffer asked Mr. Trask how bad the division was among the trappers regarding the proposal?
Mr. Trask stated he had written comments prepared, but after speaking with their attorney in Washington, DC he had concerns with some of the language. He just wanted to be sure that something put in writing would not come back and be used in the lawsuit. He asked that Mr. Trask not submit anything in writing until his suggestions could be incorporated in the final comments.
Mr. Trask stated the final comments would not change much from what he was going to say. Mr. Elowe had mentioned the exposed bait part of the rule; he thought that at the request of the MTA there was an adjustment made so that it now only applied to bait that was visible from above. Every time there was a bird caught in a trap and it was in the newspaper, it was bad PR. He thought MTA would be supportive of that change.
Mr. Trask stated the conibear issue was a much bigger issue. Requiring traps to be set off the ground and on small trees at 45° or greater to the ground would impact some; that had been a recommendation of the Department for quite a few years to avoid taking lynx. The majority of trappers have said they were already complying with that. Conibears on the ground was another issue. There are 1,000s of these being used on the ground to catch marten. To completely eliminate those to protect possibly 1 lynx per year from being injured or killed was completely unreasonable and unnecessary. He thought there were ways to keep lynx out of those boxes without completely prohibiting those kinds of sets. MTA would be suggesting some language they thought would solve the problem without completely eliminating the use of those boxes on the ground.
Commissioner Martin stated in regards to what Mr. Trask had said, we were hoping to obtain the same goal, but we were moving forward very cautiously.
C. Step 1
1. Fishing Regulations
Mr. Boland stated 3 or 4 years ago we embarked on a project to streamline the fishing rules. Mr. Boland had anticipated at least 3 years of pretty heavy volume of fishing law changes. This was the third year and the streamlining and simplification had been wrapped into the package. The bulk of the changes were simplifying regulations on bass, lake trout and salmon. We were continuing to streamline the lawbook and pare down special regulations with standardizing language. In the past we’d had several regions using different verbage to say the same thing; we’re standardizing that and putting it into S-codes.
Mr. Boland introduced Joe Dembeck, lakes research biologist working out of the Bangor office. Joe had been a big help in developing the package and would be working closely with Mr. Boland until the changes were incorporated into the lawbook. Mr. Boland went over the packet and gave a breakdown to the group (see packet).
Council Member Comments and Questions
Commissioner Martin stated there had been some discussion as to possibly incorporating the definitions of ice and open water fishing into the statute. Where were we with that?
Mr. Boland stated it had been decided to put it into rule.
Mr. Goodwin asked if the depth of the ice would be used in the rule.
Mr. Boland stated they did not intend to, it would be hard to enforce.
Mr. Kieffer commented on Square Lake and the limit including splake.
Mr. Boland stated there were no splake in Square Lake. That may have gotten into the proposal because of the S designation found in the lawbook stated that particular brook trout rule included splake. At the end of the book, more than likely, there would be an S designation used consistently across the state for the limit on brook trout and in parenthesis it included splake, charr, etc. We were not indicating that there were splake in Square Lake.
Mrs. Oldham asked if there were any safety concerns about night ice fishing and snowmobiles?
Mr. Boland stated there was some concern about safety at night, however, we currently had 100’s of waters open to night fishing for crappies, smelts and cusk and the salmonid fishery at night was not very good. He didn’t think we’d see a lot of activity in the wintertime at night.
Mrs. Oldham stated that if there was not a great demand, maybe it was not worth the risk.
Mr. Dembeck stated that when you looked at definitions, we queried about 24 states that had ice fishing to look at the definition to see what similar wording was. Most of the definitions were taken from NH and VT and modified by Warden Service and staff.
Mr. Boland referred to the smaller packet Council had been given. The Moosehead Lake proposal for a change on lake trout did not fit into one of the categories. We had not fine-tuned changes that we thought were coming on salmon regulations. There would be something available by Step 2.
Mr. Clark asked about the special regulations, S-2 and S-10 were no longer going to be used, were we going to be reclassifying them?
Mr. Boland stated we would be using them. We had several regulations for bass, lake trout and salmon and whether we would have room for all of them, we did not know. He wanted to keep the specials to one page. The proposal would eliminate out of the ice fishing and the open water about 5 or 6 of those specials. We intended to replace them with the more commonly used laws on bass, salmon and lake trout. He referred to a map and discussed closures on Umbagog Lake.
Mr. Poulin stated he assumed we would be going out to public hearings with these.
Mr. Boland stated yes, and we would be having one in Greenville.
Commissioner Martin stated we would be going out to at least 2 public hearings, and they would be held in July.
2. Heritage Charr List
Mr. Boland stated that there was a bill in the Legislature that proposed to identify charr as a state heritage fish like we did brook trout a couple of years ago and there were other parts of the bill that would prohibit stocking on those waters and the use of live bait. The bill was passed to establish the list of heritage waters and what that required was a substantive rule change. We needed to go through a couple of steps of rulemaking with the Council, then go back to the Legislature for their blessing, and then back to the Council for Step 3. We needed to table this and then come back in the fall when it was more timely.
A motion was made by Mr. Goodwin and seconded by Mr. Savage to table the proposal.
Vote: All in favor; item tabled.
V. Other Business
1. Coyote Legislation Report
Mr. Elowe stated there were a number of bills in the Legislature this year dealing with coyotes, specifically LD’s 823, 824 and 1045. One was to create an effective coyote control program, one was to extend the night hunting season for coyotes and one was to establish a coyote awards program. Two of those were resolves. A Legislative resolve can’t enact law, but it can give guidance to the Department. The Committee took the two resolves and the one bill and switched things around to accomplish their purpose. Specifically, the coyote award program which was an act and not a resolve, they rewrote to extend the coyote night hunting because the resolve that originally intended to do that couldn’t change the statute. Then, they took the night hunting resolve and killed it.
Mr. Elowe stated LD 823 was a resolve to create an effective coyote control program and after much discussion rewrote that and amended it to create a working group to review existing programs for enhancing, creating and maintaining critical deer habitat as well as reducing predation by coyotes. That language had gone though the House and Senate, been engrossed and was about to be signed by the Governor.
Commissioner Martin stated the task force he created, one of the challenges he gave them was to report back to the Department with recommendations no later than the end of July. A question was asked as to the status of LD 823, which not only created the task force, it directed Commissioner Martin to create a working group. The working group would report back to the Legislature by the end of December of 2007. A question was asked, could the task force he created in April evolve into the other working group? It very well could, maybe with changes in membership, but could very well be one in the same.
2. Progress of Deer Task Force
Mr. Dumont stated this was a 7-member board and included staff from the Department. At their first meeting they reviewed the deer planning process. The next meeting was scheduled for June 12th and they would focus on mortality issues. We would also ask the group whom they wanted there to give more information. Rather than try to deal with all the issues in one meeting, try to set the meetings up to deal with one issue at a time. After dealing with mortality issues they would focus on habitat.
Commissioner Martin stated he felt the first meeting went well. It was mostly an organizational meeting to let the group know what other working groups had done in the past. The Chair would need to keep the group focused.
VI. Councilor Reports
Councilors gave reports.
VII. Public Comments & Questions
Mr. Trask commented on the shortening of the grouse season and the bear bill that had made it to the House.
VIII. Agenda Items & Schedule Date for Next Meeting
The next meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. at the Rangeley Guides and Sportsmen Association building.
A July meeting was scheduled for July 11, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. at the Greenville Headquarters.
IX. Adjournment
Mr. Clark motioned to adjourn the meeting and Mr. Witte seconded that. The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 p.m.
