Should game wardens break the law? Mainers say no!

wardens patch colorColin Woodard’s Maine Sunday Telegram report on the Maine Warden Service has stirred up a hornet’s nest of concerns, and those concerns will be examined soon by the legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It will be interesting to see if the Warden Service is forthcoming in answering all of the questions that have been raised.

I raised a few concerns myself in my May 10 outdoor news column, which I have shared with members of the IF&W Committee.

Along with that column, I invited readers to answer this question: Should Maine game wardens be allowed to break the law and to encourage others to break the law, in order to arrest law breakers?

The response was overwhelming. So far 703 people have answered the question. 664 (94.45%) said no, while just 28 (3.98%) said yes and 11 (1.56%) were not sure.

That’s as definitive an answer as I’ve ever gotten since I started my Sportsmen Say Survey several years ago. If you didn’t answer the question, there’s still time to weigh in. You can access the question here.

I will share these results with the IFW Committee, with the hope that they will act to stop these unfortunate and offensive practices.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.