By Mike Roche

Human beings are generally not big fans of change.

That trait plays itself out countless times in our personal lives and in the things that make up our society. Walk into a retail store and you are faced with a choice to follow the traditional path and get in line at a checkout and deal with a person or, as is becoming the rule, use a self-checkout. That, for many of us, is a big change. The lifelong experience of face-to-face interaction, the “How are you today?” greeting and human interaction are being changed by the cost-cutting nature of our world and resulting in this new way of shopping.

Remember when your stop at a gas station involved a person who offered to wash your windshield and check your oil? That was one of my high school part-time jobs and it has disappeared. We change as we age and those of us with a lot of candles on our birthday cake experience changes in our health and vigor. “Remember when?” is seemingly part of every conversation. It is not my intention to judge change, but rather, to point out what to this writer is a coming change to the way environmental resources are managed in Massachusetts.

The Aug. 20 edition of the Daily News featured on the front page a news release detailing the five-year plan entitled “Connections Working Together for Nature” which was released to the public by the Healy Administration. For 35 years of my life, it was my pleasure to be a member of the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife Board. That position put me in the middle of policy decisions regarding fish and wildlife resources and that time period featured many changes.

Now, without having access to the breadth of information that is almost a daily part of the management of outdoor resources in the state and across the nation, I have become an observer instead of a participant. The news release is a capsule of the lengthy plan, and the entire document is available online. The department includes four divisions. They are the Office of Fishing and Boating Access, the Division of Ecological Restoration, the Division of Marine Fisheries, and the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. In the press release, the plan lays out “numerous wide-ranging goals and strategies in a ‘road map’ designed to guide the department as well as the four divisions to conserve biodiversity, build climate resilience and promote environmental justice” according to Commissioner Tom O’Shea.

This plan is a huge change from the vision that drove matters when my tenure as a board member began. The Division of Fisheries and Wildlife was focused on promoting fish and wildlife populations and hunters and fishermen had traditionally been the constituency driving those programs. Revenue from license sales was a primary source of the agency’s funding, as was federal funding from the Pittman/Robertson Act which placed an 8% excise tax on guns and hunting equipment.

During my tenure, the mission of MassWildlife (as the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife became known) broadened. A much greater emphasis was placed on non-game wildlife species and rare and endangered plants, insects, birds and animals. Like it or not, society has changed, and these changes are addressed in the five-year plan. Hunters will find that they are no longer the primary user group, as more and more of the population is stepping forward as users and interested parties in the management of our common environmental resources. At this point, the four divisions are assessing what this plan means to them. It is truly going to be a different world going forward and hopefully the vision will lead to a future when more Massachusetts residents enjoy abundant outdoor resources.

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Meanwhile, Massachusetts deer hunters have been able to check on MassFishHunt to determine if their application for an Antlerless Deer Permit resulted in their selection to receive one in the zone in which they applied. Anecdotally, a number of those hunters that this writer and deer hunter has spoken with have received Zone 5 or 6 ADPs. It also appears that locally, deer numbers are good, as sightings early in the morning or at last light seem to indicate plentiful deer numbers. Hopefully that will translate into lots of venison in local freezers. Include me in those lucky enough to be selected and maybe there will be a chance to christen the new Winchester SuperX 4!

If you have been following trends, the use of trail cameras – particularly those that send images directly to your smartphone – are generating controversy and some states have banned them. The issue is “fair chase” and whether this new technology crosses the line. Examples include Arizona and Nevada having banned trail cameras for hunting purposes. Montana does not allow the use of cameras that transmit images back to the smartphones of hunters. Kansas made the use of trail cameras on state land illegal. Neighboring New Hampshire has in place regulations that prohibit hunting the same day you view images in an area.

As this is being written, several other states are considering limits on camera technology use. To me, the “old school” scouting that involves spending time traveling in the woods to observe and ‘read’ deer signs like tracks, rubs and scrapes was woodsmanship and a measure of the hunter, not how much technology they had bought. My mentor Gig Darey would scrape spots along trails so he could determine when tracks were made and would use thread tied across a deer trail in the afternoon or early morning to determine when deer were passing. You cannot legislate a value system, and each hunter or group of hunters will determine how they will be judged by others.

Mike Roche is a retired teacher who has been involved in conservation and wildlife issues his entire life. He has written the Sportsman’s Corner since 1984 and has served as advisor to the Mahar Fish’N Game Club, counselor and director of the Massachusetts Conservation Camp, former Connecticut Valley District representative on the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife Board, a Massachusetts Hunter Education Instructor and is a licensed New York hunting guide. He can be reached at mikeroche3@msn.com.