The Dec. 6 column from David Trahan, “Animal Rights Activists put Land for Maine’s Future in peril” is false and misleading.

The term “animal rights activists” is pejorative. If anyone has put Land for Maine’s Future in peril, it is those who are using the program to promote their own pro-hunting, pro-trapping agenda. The program originally started as a land conservation program. It wasn’t until years after the first bond issue that subsequent bond issues contained language mandating that hunting, fishing and trapping be permitted on virtually all land acquired with any Land for Maine’s Future funds.

Requiring that hunting, fishing and trapping be allowed in exchange for support of Land for Maine’s Future is extortion. Why should those who want to sell their land to the state for wildlife protection purposes be prohibited from doing so? Why should the people of Maine be forced to subsidize and accept life-endangering private activities that many do not approve of in order to preserve the land for the public?

Land for Maine’s Future should be used for land conservation, not to promote killing wildlife. Trahan’s use of the words, “Banning hunting, fishing and trapping on the program’s public property” is a scare tactic taken straight from the NRA’s playbook. These activities should not be required in statute, but should be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The column is intended to drive a deeper wedge between those who appreciate living wildlife and those who kill wildlife. Land for Maine’s Future is a good program and it should be used for the purposes for which it was originally intended, not as a Trojan Horse with a hidden agenda.

John Glowa

South China.