Once again the federal government has imposed its iron will on us, the pliant, taxpaying citizens of Maine.

Washington has stomped on us like we are gnats. It is an old story. In fact, of late, the well-known Uncle Sam caricature resembles less and less the kindly, bewhiskered old guy with the star-spangled top hat and tails.

The 11th hour “decision” by the Atlantic Salmon Commission to cancel plans to permit a limited catch-and-release angling season this spring on the Penobscot River is so gratingly predictable. And, so blatantly political. According to the Bangor Daily News, Gov. Baldacci “had a conversation” with the salmon commission and convinced it to “reconsider” its plans for a spring salmon season on the river. The National Marine Fisheries Service had been strongly opposed to the special salmon season, contending that recreational fishing might endanger salmon recovery. Nobody knows for sure who said what to whom, but it’s not too difficult to read between the lines. The feds pressured the governor, and the governor turned the heat up on the state-level decision-makers at the salmon commission.

Regrettably, the commission cowed.

How does the federal government pressure the governor? Implied threats to withhold federal funding for one program or another? You better believe it. It has become a tired old Maine refrain. We are a state so destitute, so economically impaired that we dare not stand up to the feds or exert states rights for any reason. Federal dollars rule our lives and buy our servitude.

The words of salmon commission chairman Dick Ruhlin speaks volumes. In one breath Ruhlin said, “It became clear to us that we would be endangering the Atlantic salmon restoration project from a public relations aspect.” What’s that? A public relations aspect? In the next breath, Ruhlin says that, “the era of cooperation is over between the state and federal government.” Now that’s a lot of huffing and puffing.

If, indeed, as he says, the era of cooperation is over, why bother to knuckle under to the feds in the first place? Ruhlin, and his other commission members, should have stood their ground and stuck to plans for a spring salmon season. Certainly, the disenfranchised salmon anglers, as well as those of us who keep hoping for spirited public servants willing to go nose-to-nose with the feds, would have applauded a commission willing to fight for the sportsman.

What did the Atlantic Salmon Commission have to lose by telling the governor or the feds where to get off? The fact of the matter is that, if past is prologue, the feds will soon declare the Atlantic salmon an endangered species on the Penobscot River. It would have been nice to have one last historic go at hooking a salmon before they shut it down indefinitely.

As an endangered species, our Atlantic salmon is like the lynx: it is endangered from a political perspective, not a biological one. Listing our hatchery-raised Atlantic salmon as endangered is not rationale or scientifically justifiable. Most of the salmon returning to the river are progeny of hatchery-reared fish.

There is no unique salmon strain left to protect or recover.

Still the beat goes on. It is just a matter of time before the political exploitation of the Endangered Species Act by environmental extremists and our federal government bureaucrats paralyzes our state. They are determined, it seems, to regulate and litigate into extinction our hunting, trapping, and fishing heritages.

Will Maine ever elect a governor with backbone who will, not only stand up to the overstepping federal tyrants, but select people for appointive positions who will do the same?

The Penobscot salmon decision was a product of our boundless subjugation as a state, and our desperate, shameless clamor for federal dollars. The decision was a profound disappointment in so many ways.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].