Commissioner Martin (IF&W) was in Fort Kent yesterday and was interviewed by the local radio (WCXU) station. He stated that IF&W was "surprised" by the huge opposition to Sunday hunting in Maine. He went on to say that they never "in a million years" would have realized the backlash of land posting from the agricultural, small woodlot owners, and forestry community. What bothers me about these comments is this is exactly what the residents of this state have been telling our legislature and IF&W for 40 years. Why the surprise.

Commissioner Martin then went on to say that VT and NH are Maine's competitors in hunting and that 1 extra day would attract up to 40,000 new nonresidents to the state. The interviewer asked the BOLD question but what about residents. He said that we would be able to hunt also but this was designed to increase revenues to the state. Hence the problem.

Maine is one of the most heavily taxed states in the nation and there is a huge outcry from landowners (and I'm one) for property tax relief. When you increase one department's revenues on the back of private landowners without any relief to those private landowners its doomed to fail.