The details of an amendment to L.D. 11, the wolf hybrid bill, are becoming clear as legislation nears a vote before the Maine Senate.
Senator David Trahan (R-Waldoboro) is the sponsor of “An Act to Regulate the Keeping of Wolf Hybrids.”
“It’s very tough. Very tough,” Trahan said of the bill. “I can’t imagine it would be worth keeping a wolf hybrid after this is passed.”
The Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry has “voted unanimously to support the bill,” Trahan said March 18.
Trahan authored the original bill as a response to Jim Doughty’s plan to open Wolf Ledge Refuge, a sanctuary with a capacity for 18 hybrids, in Bristol.
Trahan said he has discussed the bill with Doughty and incorporated Doughty’s concerns about the illegal breeding and sale of the animals into the amendment. “He did, actually, in the end, help toughen up the law,” Trahan said.
Trahan predicted the bill would go before the Senate “within the next two weeks.”
A March 15 draft of the amendment, provided by the Office of Policy & Legal Analysis, reveals the strategy the state will use to restrict the ownership of the animals.
The amendment would require prospective owners to obtain a “permit to possess wildlife in captivity” from the Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (DIFW), as well as an importation permit.
The bill, as amended, would not enact a “complete moratorium” on new animals, as had previously been discussed. Regulations on importation, however, would require owners to treat hybrids like “a lion or a circus animal,” Trahan said. “I would be shocked if anyone wanted to do that.”
Existing owners – including Doughty, who has two pet hybrids – wouldn’t have to obtain a wildlife permit for the hybrid(s) they keep as of April 1.
The hybrid(s) would have to be “incapable of producing young” and the owner would have to continue to license the hybrids under existing guidelines, follow new rules for the transfer of hybrids and notify the state within 30 days of a hybrid’s death.
After all qualifying hybrids die, the Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources would submit legislation to repeal the exception and require the DIFW permit in all cases.
Failure to comply with the wildlife licensing requirement or the restrictions on existing owners would be a civil violation subject to a $2500 fine.
The amendment would forbid the sale, exchange or adoption of hybrids except under strict guidelines governing the transfer of “at large” hybrids to holders of the wildlife permit.
DIFW must also “establish confinement standards to protect the public.”
The amendment would forbid municipal clerks from issuing licenses for hybrids after April 1 for most hybrids and after Jan. 1, 2012, for hybrids less than six months old on April 1.
An owner who abandons a wolf hybrid would be subject to a $1000 fine.
According to Jill Ippoliti, a legislative analyst in the Office of Policy & Legal Analysis, planned minor changes to the amendment would add “transition provisions” for existing shelters to continue operations until they receive a DIFW permit.
Doughty said he will continue with his plans for Wolf Ledge Refuge. “We’ve already got the licensing,” he said.
Doughty said he opposes the bill. “It’s not going to solve anything,” he said. The bill will only shift the regulatory burden from one state agency to another, Doughty said, and hybrid owners will attempt to bypass it by listing their animals as malamute or husky mixes.
Doughty said he has spoken with a Maine resident and member of a Native American tribe who told him the tribes must approve the bill before enactment.
The man, David Slagger, did not immediately return a message left March 22.
