This commentary is by Brenna Galdenzi, the president of Protect Our Wildlife. Trust is a fragile thing — hard to earn, easy to lose. For wildlife protection advocates, trust in the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s leadership has never really been earned and keeps slipping further away.   Earlier this year, the department began discussing bear management and the need to kill more bears. Notably, at the Fish and Wildlife Department Board meeting on June 17, the department acknowledged — as does the scientific literature — that killing more bears will not prevent future conflicts between humans and bears. Black bears are typically managed according to social carrying capacity: how many bears people want on the landscape. This differs from how species like deer are managed, where biological carrying capacity drives decisions. Yet the department hasn’t surveyed Vermonters on this issue in years. In fact, in an email obtained through a public records request, the department admitted it has no reliable carrying-capacity data. So the obvious question is: How is it justifying a monthlong season extension and the issuance of additional bear tags?  What’s even more troubling is how dramatically — and opaquely — the department changed course. In February, the department recommended extending the bear season by one week, through the end of November. Then, in April, a hunter and former board chair of the Fish and Wildlife Department petitioned to extend the season through mid-December, legalize bear-baiting, and issue a second bear tag.  In May, without presenting any new scientific evidence or biological justification, the department reversed its February recommendation and aligned itself with the same hunter and former board chair, and recommended extending the season through mid-December. It went from extending the season by a week to extending it by a full month without explanation, though it rejected the request for a fall bear-baiting season. READ MORE A mid-December season increases the likelihood that bear hounds will disturb denning bears. Vermont, unlike many other states, does not prohibit hunters from killing hibernating bears. However, the board adopted the recommendation and voted to extend the season. At the recent June meeting, before the vote, this same hunter told both the board and the department that he had been promised a season extension and a second bear tag in February. The department has been asked who made that promise. It has not responded. If true, this raises a serious question the department has yet to answer: whether its May recommendation was shaped by a private assurance made before the public process even began. This sense of entitlement is precisely what wildlife advocates have been raising the alarm about for years. It erodes public confidence in the regulatory process and is one reason legislative reforms are likely coming. When we submitted a public records request to understand why the department abandoned its February 2026 position, very few records were produced. To my mind, this raises serious questions about whether the decision was made behind closed doors, beyond public scrutiny. The department still hasn’t explained why it reversed course or whether the reversal was to appease this hunter. Wildlife management decisions should be transparent, evidence based and fully justified. This one was none of those things. It shouldn’t be the responsibility of nonprofit watchdog organizations to hold a state agency accountable to the people it exists to serve. Read the story on VTDigger here: Trust in Vermont Fish and Wildlife is eroding . ...read more read less