Maine needs to restore the Hunting Heritage Program

DSCN3511Recognizing that hunting was increasingly challenged, the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife teamed up in the early 2000s to conduct annual campaigns called the Hunting Heritage Program. The purpose of the program was to educate Maine people (especially nonhunters) about why they need hunting and hunters, including an explanation of game management strategies and discussion of specific problems associated with hunting and game management.

One important element of the program was an annual media kit, designed to help the press deal with, and report on, the often complicated and specialized information surrounding hunting issues in Maine. In addition to being delivered to members of Maine’s media, the kit was posted on DIF&W’s and SAM’s websites, so it was available to the general public as well as the media.

As DIF&W looks to contract out its communications programs and projects, I want to encourage them to revive the Hunting Heritage Program which no longer exists. And throughout this month of October, I’m going to present a few columns from the 2004 media kit, titled “Why Maine Needs Hunters.” That topic is still very relevant today!

The 2004 media kit was funded by grants from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, the Brook Family Foundation, and SAM’s Conservation Education Fund, and was a partnership of DIF&W, SAM, Maine Bowhunters Association, Presque Isle Fish and Game Club, Rangeley Region Guides and Sportsmen’s Association, Windham-Gorham Rod and Gun Club, and the Associated Sportsmen’s Clubs of York County.

The 2004 media kit included an introductory letter from me, noting that we were providing “both ready-to-use articles and fact sheets in the press kit to assist in article and editorial preparation.” That year’s kit focused on public health and safety issues related to hunting white-tailed deer, noting that “hunting is the only safe, certain, practical method of accomplishing deer control in Maine – especially in residential areas where high numbers of white-tail deer can get out of control when hunters are denied access.”

Tomorrow in George’s Outdoor News, I will post the first article in the 2004 Hunting Heritage’s media kit, which traced our hunting tradition in law, conservation, politics, and cherished memories.

 

 

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.