N.H. Fish and Game announced Wednesday that it has withdrawn its proposal for a bobcat hunting season, following months of strong public opposition. It was welcome news to many in the Monadnock region who have questioned the rationale of the plan.
“People still don’t understand that the bobcat hasn’t quite made a full comeback,” said Trace Borozinski, a sixth-grader at the Well School in Peterborough whose class helped make the bobcat the official N.H. State Wild Cat in 2015. “I don’t think they’re stable yet.”
The bobcat season was closed in 1989 when the population was at a low point. The rise in numbers of late prompted the proposal to reopen the season, but not everyone was convinced of the accuracy of the study showing population increase.
Jan Griska, of Rindge, and his wife Marilyn have been traveling to Concord to share their opposition to the proposal at the bobcat hearings. On April 1, Jan was slated to speak before the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, but so many people wanted to speak that time ran out. “The study was very flawed and that’s what [Jan] wanted to speak to,” Marilyn said Wednesday.
Jan is a member of the Rindge Conservation Commission, which sent a letter to the JLCAR in late March asking the committee not to confirm the proposal.
The ConCom argued that the proposed harvestable number, 50, was based on variable calculations that make up the bobcat population. “A few hard winters could change a modest positive population growth rate to a troubling negative one,” the letter reads.
But Glenn Normandeau, executive director of Fish and Game, said the study was based on data collected over the last two decades. He also noted that Fish and Game’s Kent Gustafson is a nationally recognized wildlife statistician.
The Fish and Game Department and Commission arrived at the decision to withdraw in consultation with JLCAR, which heard a number of objections at its April 1 hearing on the bobcat proposal.
Among them were concerns about the Canada lynx, a federally protected endangered species, and about the cost of administering the bobcat season.
But Normandeau said it wasn’t so much the objections that led to the withdrawal, but the unexpected level of public opposition. “We were moving against the tide,” he said.
The JLCAR voted to send the bobcat proposal to the policy committees of the N.H. House and Senate. “It was clear to us collectively where the Legislature was going on this,” he said.
Normandeau said the cost of administering the season wasn’t going to add anything to the budgetary needs of the department, though it would have been more work for staff members. He also said that, while the Canada lynx is a special concern, trapping protocols are already in place in designated areas of New Hampshire to safeguard the lynx. “We have never had an accidental lynx take that I am aware of,” he said.
But Eric Aldrich, of Hancock, said the lynx issue is a genuine concern, as is alienating the public. “Moving forward with the proposal without public support was not a wise decision strategically,” he said, pointing to Fish and Game’s reliance on public funding. “To a large extent it’s funded by people like me who love to fish and hunt, and that’s great, but it’s not enough.”