Fish and Game Bear Fee is an Attack

Once again Fish and Game (always liked that much better than Fish/Wildlife) has found a way to rape the sportsman of funds and not provide what they said they would. It seems that over the past few years we have been requiring "bear permits" for most all seasons, it keeps creeping up on us. Non-residents, then all, then trappers, then non-residents during deer season. The only standing is a Maine hunter during firearm season on deer that doesn't not need a bear permit. Honestly a permit should be required to hunt bear at any time. But that is not the issue. Bear management and protection of a 30 million industry is. See about 15,000 bear permits are purchased each year. Do the math on non-resident fee's, and you will see we are approaching over a $1,000,000 in funds for fish and game. Now we have a bear biologist and one of the best bear research projects in the United States. There are three controled study areas, with a number of female (sow) bears wearing radio collars. These bear and off spring are tracked and studied. What a great program, producing fantastic results and information for youth and sportsman. But as usual the funds have been RAIDED by the department. We run a bear project on less than $100,000 a year. So where does the rest of the money go. Oh it must be to sportsman shows or maybe tourism to promote hunting and fishing in Maine. Right, it goes to wardens and administration. The bear project is using equipment that was out dated when it was built. Radio collars should be live time transmit to the office computer. We shouldn't have to pay to have a warden pilot fly an area to locate bear. Yes that is right, its called intra department billing, a nice word for stealing bear money to fund the elite wood cops.