HALIFAX — Most people care about wildlife and assume that the Vermont Fish and Wildlife (VFW) department is working to protect all wildlife on behalf of all Vermonters.
Some biologists are doing important work, but other folks at VFW are working only on behalf of hunters, trappers, and anglers.
VFW should be working to protect wildlife for their own sake - especially during spring and summer months when wild animals have young and should not be killed.
Sadly, a lot of so-called nuisance animals are killed outside of hunting and trapping seasons. Killing them may also result in the deaths of more wild animals, as young animals can be orphaned.
Furthermore, the nuisance behavior - seeking food or a den site or building a dam to create a pond - may simply be an animal's attempt to care for her young. Nor will killing a nuisance animal prevent another animal from engaging in the same behavior.
To make matters worse, VFW does not regulate nuisance trapping, so they don't know how many animals are killed, where, why, whether the problem was solved, or any biological information about those animals. For an agency that should base its decisions on science, that's pretty unscientific.
Fortunately, Protect Our Wildlife (POW), a non-profit organization, is working to protect wildlife in Vermont. POW has secured grant funding for a new “Living With Wildlife” campaign to help municipalities and the public humanely address wildlife conflicts.
You can learn more at protectourwildlifevt.org/conflicts.