One of the ways we feel important is when we’re included in the process of making decisions. Conversely, we feel left out if we are, well, left out.
If we made a list of favorable and unfavorable words, included would be near the top, excluded close to the bottom. And it’s not just a matter of language. Words are the vessels which form our thoughts and from which our perspectives are shaped.
This may be news to some folks, but it’s not to Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (DIFW) who, for past three years, has been working with a Virginia-based consultant who was recently given the National Rifle Association’s DistinguishedLeadership Award for his ability to convey positive impressions through the choice of certain words and the omission of others.
His influence is apparent in the Department’s recently issued 15 year Big Game Management Plan. The current version is a draft and the public is asked to comment on it by June 15. However, copies of the Plan are not available in most town offices, though it is available on line if you have Internet service (many Mainers don’t, especially in rural areas) and are willing to read all ninety-seven pages. Of course, you have to know about the Plan in the first place. It’s not been widely publicized and the timing of the comment period, coming as it does just after the June 12 primaries, may distract our focus from wildlife to politics.
An on-line view of the Plan looks a bit like a travel brochure – lush, idyllic scenes of mountains, wilderness lakes, close-ups of bear, deer and turkeys looking benignly into the camera. It would seem that one of the Department’s techniques (perhaps enhanced by its hired consultant) to favorably affect public opinion would be Don’t Show Them What We Do.
That’s why we won’t see photos of bears being killed while they pig out on human junk food, chased by GPS radio-collared hounds (don’t ask how they’re trained) and shot out of a tree, or held fast in a trap while it struggles to break free. If we are shown what DIFW wants us to approve – bears and other animals cruelly treated by so-called ‘sportsmen’ – we might oppose such treatment on the basis of simple humanity – a term from which the word ‘humane’ is derived.
Another technique is closely related to the first – Don’t Tell Them What We Do. It’s a bit like going to a huge storehouse somewhere (which I’ll call Euphemism Central) and selecting words that conceal instead of reveal, distort instead of inform, obscure instead of clarify.
We all know them, having seen them many times in print – bag, cull, reduce, dispatch, and (by far the most common) harvest – a term widely used even by journalists to visualize a neutral process instead of the suffering that actually occurs. We’re expected to believe – and we often do without thinking – that killing animals is the same as harvesting corn and wheat and oats as if they were unfeeling commodities.
If more accurate terms were used to describe what passes for hunting, we’d read about ambushing, killing and murder, all of which are obviously inappropriate to obtain a positive reaction from the public.
So our opinion of the draft plan is being sought, but we’re not being shown or told the brutal reality of what we’re expected to approve. And because we express an opinion, it may not count if it’s not what the Department wants to hear. In October 2016 a public hearing (requested by concerned citizens) was held in Augusta and shortly thereafter votes were cast whether or not to extend the trapping season for beavers and bobcats. 57 approved, 91 were opposed. Incredibly, 55 of the 91 were disallowed because cruelty –the basis for most of the opposition – was not (in the Department’s view) the issue. DIFW then ruled in favor of extending the trapping season even though it had fewer votes (many of them cast by trappers themselves) while ignoring the will of the majority and doing what it intended to do all along.
That mindset is clearly evident in the Big Game Management Plan. Public participation is encouraged but there’s no indication it will be taken seriously, especially by an agency that considers cruelty acceptable.
Ironically, for a governmental entity that focuses in large part in allowing others to capture animals, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been captured itself by the special interests of hunters and trappers here in Maine and out-of- state groups that wield nation-wide influence. The agency’s real constituency of the animals they’re supposed to protect and the non-hunting public they’re supposed to serve has been largely replaced by a business model – the customers are the hunters, the animals are the inventory, and the revenue produced from the sale of licenses helps pay most of the bills. Any business wants to sell more. DIFW is no exception.
Despite the number of charts and reams of information couched in seemingly rational and scientific terms that appeal to the reader, the Big Game Management Plan is a blueprint for expansion. Because of a historical trend toward declining hunters, more animals to kill and more places to kill them will always be the agency’s priority. The Plan and the proposals it suggests should be regarded in that light.
Note – Even though the deadline for comments has passed, it’s still possible and appropriate for opinions by citizens about the Big Game Management Plan to be considered by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Don’t be deterred because an artificial date has come and gone. Previous attempts to find contact information on the Department’s website were unsuccessful, hence no link was included in this article. It has now been determined that Robert.Cordes@maine.gov is the person to whom comments should be addressed.
Don Loprieno is a published author and has maintained a life-long interest in education and history. He lives in Bristol, Maine where he is active in community affairs.
The New View From Here 