In reporting the results of the Division of Fisheries & Wildlife’s recent listening sessions regarding the proposal to weaken Massachusetts hunting regulations, Acting Director Eve Schlüter misrepresents what the results of those sessions indicate when she states they “showed widespread support” for the proposed changes. What they showed is widespread support among hunters — which is not the same as having widespread support among the general public.
It is true that approximately 70% of the comments received during those sessions favored allowing Sunday hunting, allowing crossbow hunting, and reducing weapon discharge setbacks from homes and roads. That, however, does not signal “widespread support” for these changes because approximately 70% of the individuals who submitted comments for the listening sessions self-identified as being hunters.
Hunters make up just 0.8% of the Massachusetts population, which means the comments are not a statistically significant measure of public support for or opposition to these changes. They present only a majority opinion of hunters — the group, after all, whose privileges will be expanded by the proposed changes. It is telling that most people who opposed the changes were non-hunters, the population that represents the vast majority of Massachusetts residents.
The division, Gov. Maura Healey, and our legislators, who will ultimately make the choice whether to weaken our hunting safety laws, should base this decision on evidence, facts, and reliable data about public sentiment. Claiming that a viewpoint held by fewer than 1% of the population represents “widespread support” willfully ignores the viewpoint of more than 99% of Massachusetts residents. That is not reliable data. That is bias.
This bias is particularly evident in the division’s report on the listening sessions, which, in its content and presentation, privileges those who support the proposal to weaken the laws and trivializes the valid concerns of those opposed to such changes.
The bias was clear at the start of every listening session, when Schlüter and others from the division prefaced the session with a lengthy presentation arguing in favor of weakening the laws. Clearly, taking comments was merely to confirm a decision the division already made and not as an objective, genuine effort to understand the public’s views.
And now Gov. Healey is attempting to slip these changes through the legislative process by inserting them in the supplemental budget bill, even though these are not budget-related issues. They are public safety issues. If they’re going to be considered at all, they should go through the proper legislative process — through public hearings, committee debates, floor debate, and votes as bills of their own.
These are not the kind of methods one uses to gather input on or make changes to the law if one believes there is truly “widespread support” for those changes. These signal, rather, an attempt to ignore and evade public accountability for changes that will put more people at risk of injury or death, more property at risk of trespass, and more weapons in our communities while providing no public health, environmental, or safety benefit.
Matteo Pangallo lives in Shutesbury.