A Supreme Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed in 2014 by Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that was meant to stop them from using taxpayer money against a referendum intended to ban bear hunting, trapping and bear baiting practices. The lawsuit said the use of the taxpayer funds was an illegal use of public monies. The lawsuit also wanted to make the department instantly reply to previously made Freedom of Access Act requests about their political goings-on.
The motion was granted by Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler, who found the issue disputable because the election had already ended. Wheeler issued this ruling right at the time that a hearing was planned for April 6 to tackle the lawsuit issues by the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee.
In November 2014, voters had turned down the proposal that had been initiated by the local citizens by a vote of 54 percent to 46 percent. Thus, this is the reason the judge said she could not sanction the lawsuit since it was done and already voted on.
Wheeler said that the Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting, who were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and who are sponsored by the Humane Society of the US, needed to have filed the lawsuit much earlier, prior to September. Then, it would have been useful to consider the issues in the lawsuit they had raised in the framework of being an ongoing debate, as well as a question for a live ballot since the election is over.
Mainers for Fair Bear said they had postponed filing the lawsuit because they had hoped the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife would obey the law of its own accord. However, when they saw that was not the case they filed this lawsuit.
Representatives for the Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting reported that they were not happy about the judge’s decision. The group has not yet decided if they will appeal. However, the campaign manager for the “No on 1 campaign,” and the Maine Wildlife Conservation Council, Mr. James Cote, said he agreed with the judge’s decision. Cote said the reason for this was that the decision reaffirmed their position.
According to a statement made in regards to the lawsuit, Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said that it believes that bear baiting, hunting and the use of bear traps to all be methods of legitimate bear hunting, as well as an effective way to manage bears in the state of Maine and if they were forbidden, this would greatly handicap their capability to successfully manage the bear population, which the law requires of it.
