New Fish and Game Laws Enacted
The legislature has now published a listing of the final resolution of all bills considered in the 2007 session. The entire report, organized by legislative committee, is available on the legislature’s website.
The Fish and Wildlife Committee considered 78 bills, issuing unanimous reports on 53 of them and divided reports on 21 bills. Only 28 of those bills were enacted into law, fairly typical. Out of more than 2,000 bills submitted by legislators, only a few hundred are enacted each session.
The last issue of SAM News reported on the final resolution of all the bills in SAM’s 2007 Legislative Agenda, including bills we proposed and bills we supported or opposed. That list is still available on SAM’s website.
Here’s a report on the details of all of the new fish and game laws.
Alien hunters: requires a person who is not a citizen of the United States to be accompanied by a licensed guide if that person wants to hunt moose, deer, or bear.
Invasive plants: incorporates the existing lake and rive protection sticker and fee structure for Maine’s registered boats with the watercraft registration eliminating the need to produce and administer a separate lake and river protection sticker for watercraft registered in Maine. Watercraft registered outside of Maine will still be required to display the separate lake and river protection sticker when operating in the inland waters of the state.
Baitfish: prohibits the use of blackchin shiners as baitfish in the inland waters of the state.
Arctic Char: establishes Salvelinus alpinus aquassa, a distinct subspecies of the arctic charr known in Maine as the blueback charr, as a state heritage fish. It also requires the Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to adopt by rule a list of all state heritage fish waters and prohibits a person from possessing or using live fish as bait in or on state heritage fish waters. SAM supported this bill.
ATV Registration: allows a member of the Armed Forces who is permanently stationed in Maine, or the spouse or child of that member, to register an ATV at the cost of a resident registration.
Hunting: establishes the Black Bear Research Fund; requires nonresident hunters to obtain a nonresident late season bear hunting permit to hunt bear during the regular firearms season on deer if that person does not possess a regular season bear hunting permit and wishes to hunt bear; creates a new bear trapping permit with a fee of $27 for residents and $67 for nonresidents; prohibits the intentional waste of wounded or killed game animals; authorizes a guide to dispatch a client’s wounded or killed bear, deer or moose after legal hunting hours. This bill was submitted by the Maine Professional Guides Association.
Moose Permits: raises the number of moose permits auctioned by DIF&W from 5 to 10 and gives the Commissioner the option of not issuing permits to bidders if the bids present a financial return insufficient to reflect the public value of the permits. The money raised goes to conservation education of youth. SAM worked with the conservation schools and Maine’s Secretary of State Matt Dunlap to develop this legislation and supported it strongly.
Snowmobiles: removes the requirement that resident-owned snowmobile registration numbers remain with the snowmobile until that snowmobile is destroyed, abandoned or permanently removed from the state.
Wardens: authorizes game wardens to provide assistance to other entities, including county and state agencies, municipalities and private organizations or person, and to charge those entities for those services.
Illegal species: provides that the DIF&W Commissioner, when an illegal introduction of invasive fish species has occurred, may authorize licensed anglers to assist in the taking and destruction of that invasive fish species using methods that may otherwise be prohibited by law or rule.
Wardens: authorizes DIF&W to compensate assistant game wardens for mandatory assignments and their attendance at mandatory training, classes or meetings and reimburse assistant game wardens for approved expenses.
Endangered species: amends the list of state endangered and threatened species by adding 14 species, removing 1 species, down-listing 1 species, updating the names of 4 species and adding the qualifier “breeding population only,” to 2 species already on the list.
ATV Trails: prohibits a truck, pickup truck or passenger vehicle from operating on a designated all-terrain vehicle trail that is not on a gravel road system unless that use has been authorized by the landowner or the landowner’s agent or it is necessitated by an emergency involving the safety of a person or property.
Apprentice Hunters: creates resident and nonresident apprenticeship hunter license, patterned after the junior hunting license, which allows a person without a hunting license to hunt under the supervision of a person who holds a valid hunting license. A person is eligible to hold an apprenticeship hunter license only once and the license includes bear and turkey hunting permits. To be eligible to be a supervisor, a person must hold a valid hunting license and must have held a hunting license for the prior 5 years. The supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the apprentice hunter follows safe hunting protocol and hunting laws and provides penalties for a supervisor that intentionally permits a person hunting under an apprenticeship hunter license with that supervisor to hunt outside of that supervisor’s presence. This was a SAM bill sponsored by Representatives Wes Richardson and Steve Hanley.
Beagle Clubs: authorizes the DIF&W Commissioner to issue a permit to a beagle club to take live snowshoe hares for use by that beagle club. SAM worked with the beagle clubs to develop this bill and strongly supported it.
Super Pack: makes a technical change by changing the name of the “archery-only” deer hunting season to the “regular archery-only” deer hunting season for the purpose of clarity; clarifies what licenses and permits are included in the super pack license; clarifies that a license or permit contained in the super pack license is not valid unless the holder of the super pack license has met the eligibility requirements for that specific license or permit; however, a person may be issued a super pack license without meeting the specific requirements of an individual license or permit contained in the super pack license; allows the holder of a super pack to take up to 5 deer annually: one deer during either the regular open firearm season or the regular archery-only season or the special muzzle-loading season; one deer under an antlerless deer permit; and 3 more deer during the special archery season. The original super pack license was a proposal from SAM and we worked to achieve this important amendment to return the license to the form we originally envisioned.
Turkey Permits: provides a spring and fall wild turkey hunting permit to a person who is 70 years of age or older who holds a senior lifetime license. SAM supported this bill.
Deer and Coyotes: requires DIF&W’s Commissioner to establish a working group to review existing programs and efforts for creating, enhancing and maintaining critical deer habitat in the State and reducing predation of deer by coyotes. This was a SAM bill sponsored by Representative Herb Clark.
Bass Tournament: allows Special Olympics Maine to hold an open bass fishing tournament every year on the first Sunday in May on Cobbossee Lake and requires that 100% of the gross proceeds received from entry fees be donated to Special Olympics Maine or be awarded to participants as prizes. SAM supported this bill.
Personal Watercraft: exempts a motorized watercraft that does not have a horsepower rating greater than 15 horsepower and does not generate an unreasonable amount of noise from the definition of “personal watercraft” in the laws governing inland fisheries and wildlife. SAM supported this bill.
ATV Clubs: directs the Department of Conservation to convene a stakeholders group that includes representatives of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Alliance of Trail Vehicles of Maine and other interested parties to study possible incentives, including financial incentives, to encourage all-terrain vehicle registrants to join local all-terrain vehicle clubs. It directs DOC to report findings and recommendations to the legislature’s Fish and Wildlife Committee no later than December 5, 2007 and authorizes that committee to draft related legislation. SAM has worked cooperatively with ATV-Maine to study and advance this issue, and continues to follow and participate in the discussion.
Coyote Night Hunting: extends the night hunting season for coyotes (a recommendation of SAM’s Deer Task Force) by just over one month. The current night hunting season for coyotes runs from January 1 to April 3oth and this amendment changes that season to January 1 to June 1. Rep. Herb Clark submitted a similar bill for SAM, but this bill was sponsored by Rep. John Tuttle and supported by SAM.
DIF&W Omnibus Bill: provides a complimentary license to hunt and fish to a spouse or child or a game warden killed in the line of duty. It also provides that a person may not possess an antlerless deer in Washington County unless that deer has been legally registered in another county. And it adds areas to the list of state-owned wildlife management areas.
Nuisance Animals: provides that when a person has meat from harvested nuisance animals to be distributed through the Hunters for the Hungry Program, that person shall inform the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife within 24 hours that the meat is ready to be picked up. It also raises the number of nuisance deer that a person who harvested the deer can keep from 2 to 3 deer.
Landowner Relations: authorizes a limited-period Director of Recreational Access and Landowner Relations position within the Department of Conservation. Forty percent of the funding for this position must be provided by the Department of Conservation and 60 percent must come from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It also provides that this position is established to work with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife on issues regarding outreach and assistance to landowners who permit public recreation access on private lands. This was a SAM bill sponsored by Representative Jeremy Fischer.
Timber Money: conforms state law with federal statute that requires timber harvests from any of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s wildlife management areas purchased with federal aid funds be used for land management activities on the lands from which they were derived. It also repeals the requirement that the state pay 50% of the net profits that it receives from the sale or lease of natural products on such land to the municipality that includes that land.
Outdoor Licensed Network: directs the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in consultation with the Department of Conservation and the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to develop a plan to create and implement the Outdoor Licensed Network to acquire, preserve and enhance access to land and inland waters of the State, to ensure coordinated planning for the future use and preservation of access for activities licensed by the department and to provide an effective grassroots system to identify, secure and manage access on an ongoing basis. It also provides that he plan must include provisions to divide the state into sections and districts designed to encompass fish and game clubs or similar entities and that those entities must be utilized for the purpose of identifying, monitoring and prioritizing information on land within each district that may be available for acquisition or other access and to deal with landowner issues. Provides that the plan must establish the Network Advisory Council to aid fish and game clubs engaged in activities regarding the network. Requires DIF&W to report back its finding and recommendations to the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife by January 15, 2008.