Turns out Granite Staters really, really like bobcats. Who knew?
But everyone rapidly discovered the popularity of the predatory wild felines when the state decided maybe it was time to reinstate a bobcat hunt here – it had been stopped in 1989 when the population of the notoriously hard-to-count bobcats had dropped to perhaps below 200 statewide – and folks wondered if the numbers had rebounded enough to allow a limited hunt.
Well, by “folks” it seems that we’re mostly talking about trappers. Who, according to testimony at recent hearings on the proposed bobcat hunt, number about 400 total. In a state with 1.33 million people.
And why a new hunt? Bobcats don’t seem to pose a meaningful threat to domestic animals. They don’t hurt people or destroy valuable habitat for other species. They are far from overpopulated – a much derided Fish and Game Department “survey” of the elusive animal pointed to the possible existence of some 1,400 breeding-age critters statewide. They are said to be pretty much inedible, and New Hampshire citizens aren’t clamoring for coats made up of masses of little bobcat pelts.
Turns out, though, that some trappers – who often provide useful, necessary service to people –also see a market in selling bobcats’ skins to people in other countries.
People, people! Folks in other countries want to buy all sorts of awful things – rhino horns to grind into aphrodisiacs, ivory from elephants’ tusks, internal organs from endangered tigers and so on. This doesn’t make selling such things good.
When Fish and Game announced it was contemplating a new bobcat hunt, everyone quickly found out how much non-hunters – and more than a few hunters too – like bobcats and don’t want them killed for no good reason.
Count us among them.
One winter of prolonged cold and snow, a desperately hungry bobcat set up shop in the shelter of an evergreen in our backyard to watch for small critters to pop from their snow cover under a nearby bird feeder. We – and our enthralled then-housecat Daisy – had a front row seat from our sunroom windows. We were amazed at the patience and intense focus of the wild cat – and became fans of the species, even though “our” bobcat has never returned.
The number of bobcat admirers quickly became apparent when the Fish and Game Commission – which must by law be composed only of people holding active fishing, hunting or trapping licenses, meaning a pool of candidates consisting of perhaps 3 percent of all Granite Staters – said it was considering a limited bobcat hunt and opened a period to receive comments from the public.
People commented. Boy, did they comment! By the thousands, in phone calls, in letters and emails. In op-eds in the state’s newspapers. The Monitor ran what seemed to be a flood of letters and “My Turn” columns. The majority – and certainly the most cogent ones – were crammed with well-researched data on how dubious the pro-hunt “facts” were. And that the hunt would cost financially strapped Fish and Game much more than the licenses would bring in.
Those in opposition were not just the usual anti-hunting crowd but included some prominent defenders of hunting, notably John Harrigan, a highly regarded newspaper editor from Colebrook who also for 40 years wrote a much praised and widely read outdoors column, “Woods, Water and Wildlife,” for the Union Leader.
In his final column in January of 2015, Harrigan presciently asked, “How can we even imagine renewing trapping of bobcats? These are such neat little animals, about the same size as a Maine coon cat, out there working all night while we sleep well-fed and warm.”
Hearings were held, and the bobcat hunt opponents vastly outnumbered its few proponents.
Surely, surely the commission would take into account the overwhelming public sentiment.
Well, it didn’t. Decision day came. After barely a week to study the more than 5,000 comments that had poured in, the commission narrowly decided, 5 to 4, that the hunt was a go. The ensuing uproar has caused a legislative committee to step in, although it’s not clear it has the authority to stop the hunt.
And now we’ve learned – thanks to a right-to-know request filed by the Humane Society of New Hampshire as reported in last Sunday’s Union Leader – that the decision was likely fixed back in September, long before the first comments even arrived. That’s when Ted Tichy, commission chair, made his opposition clear in an email to Glenn Normandeau, its executive director.
“I’m not going to be swayed by the politically correct movement on this one. If we do, we might as well kiss all trapping and hunting goodbye,” he wrote, complaining that the Fish and Game staff was too cozy with the anti-hunting crowd. “Do not let ANY of our staff be heard talking against the commission’s position on this, no matter how we decide to proceed.”
The chair doesn’t vote unless there’s a tie, but you know that if he shared these thoughts with Normandeau, he shared them with other members.
And in January, an exchange between another commissioner, Rob Blake, and Mark Ellingwood, the wildlife division chief, made it clear that the professional staff was not in favor of the revived hunt, at least not with the population still so low. Blake responded that he firmly believed that such opposition should not “in any way” affect the decision and that the time has come to “stop allowing the antis to affect” their decision making.
Talk about contempt for the vast majority of New Hampshire citizens!
I write as someone who isn’t a hunter. But I support regulated hunting. “Eat what you kill” is an oft-repeated mantra that I think most ethical hunters follow. We modern humans have made a mess of natural checks and balances, and we have too many critters trying to share the same space.
Every time I contemplate the ragged look of a rhododendron whose tender new shoots have become someone’s delectable brunch, I murmur a little thank you to hunters, just for being out there, fighting the good fight.
And if we need hunters, they need the good will of non-hunters – who include probably 97 percent of the state’s population – or they will find more and more restrictions on their activities and fewer and fewer places left to hunt.
Maybe someone ought to remind the Fish and Game commissioners of that the next time they’re tempted to spit in the public’s eye.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)