• Allow Sunday hunting, except during deer season

• Abolish resident-only hunting on the opening day of deer season

• Abolish the lottery permit system for wild turkey hunting

• Make permanent a temporary $3 license fee OK’d by the Legislature in 2003 that was to expire in 2005.

• Create a flat $23 fee for boat registrations instead of graduating the fee based on horsepower.

• Give the department $1.4 million in general fund money in addition to license fees.

Baldacci backs Sunday hunting

Sunday hunting – except during Maine’s deer season – is being promoted by Gov. John Baldacci.

So is the end of Mainers’ exclusive ownership of deer season’s opening day.

Both measures are being advanced by the governor as a means of increasing revenue for the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

The logic, says IF&W spokesman Mark Latti, is that more licenses will be sold, particularly expensive non-resident hunting licenses.

“We’re kind of strapped right now,” Latti said of the department’s finances. “It’s a bare bones budget as it is, and has been for two years.”

Still, Latti said that he expects considerable discussion over elements of the proposed spending package.

“We plan on getting plenty of comment,” he said.

Some of that comment could turn into heated debate.

In past years when Sunday hunting was proposed, nonhunters were often joined by religious leaders in opposing the plan. Pastors have argued that Sunday hunting would lead people away from church. Nonhunters say Sundays are the only days during the autumn hunting season when they feel save to walk in the woods.

The department’s commissioner, Roland “Danny” Martin, however contends Sunday hunting is needed to attract out-of-state hunters and the dollars they bring here.

“Maine is one of only nine states in the country that does not allow hunting on Sunday,” said Martin. “We attract over 40,000 nonresident hunters a year, but lose many to neighboring states like Vermont, New Hampshire and (to) Canadian provinces where hunting is allowed on Sunday.”

He said hunting’s economic impact on the state is more than $450 million. Allowing people to hunt birds and other small game, moose and bear on Sundays would make the state more appealing to more hunters.

As proposed, Sunday hunting would be outlawed during the firearms season on deer, except for waterfowling. That measure would keep the overall deer kill as it is now.

The budget also would abolish Maine’s resident-only opening day of deer season, again in an effort to bring more out-of-state hunters here, increasing license sales in the process.

The Mainers-only day was established in 1977. The deer herd then was estimated at 160,000; it’s now between 230,000 and 300,000, according to IF&W surveys.

Yet another change in hunting regulations would see the department end the permit lottery it conducts for wild turkey hunting. Latti said the reintroduction of the game birds in the late 1970s has proven so successful that now the number of permits issued by the state nearly equals the demand for them.

Eliminating the lottery would cut costs associated with administering it.

Martin called the budget an “austere” answer to “tough fiscal times.”

Last year the department saw 12 employees eliminated due to budget constraints, Latti said. The budget proposed Friday by Baldacci avoids personnel cuts and maintains existing programs.

The governor would give IF&W $1.4 million in General Fund money. That’s a supplement to department funds coming from license sales.

Latti said Sunday night that he didn’t know when the Legislature will take up the governor’s proposal.

“There will be hearings,” he promised. “People will have a chance to speak on it.”