Dr. Seth Campbell has done research across the globe, including in Alaska, into glaciers and their impact on the environment. Courtesy of Dr. Seth Campbell

On opening day of rifle season for deer in 2023, it was 80 degrees. I brought a book to my tree stand because unless a monster buck stepped out in front of me, there was no way I was shooting a deer that day. In 2021, the September moose hunt was more successful than the week in October because hunters were dealing with temperatures in the 80s. This is not how hunting used to be. Hunters, anglers, trappers and overall conservationists can no longer ignore or downplay the other important Cs – climate change.

When I was in high school, my main mode of transportation was a snowmobile. I would bring myself to ski practice every afternoon and I would spend my free time riding around central Maine. I vividly remember one sunny morning during Christmas vacation, I met a rider who had a homemade groomer. It had gotten stuck when he had tried to get back on the trail from the camp road. I stopped and offered help. His first, gruff words to me were, “Are you from Massachusetts?” I responded, “No,” and gave him the general area of where I lived. His mood completely changed and he wished me a great day as he continued grooming the trails with his homemade drag. At that moment, I wanted to be a curmudgeon grooming trails when I retired. However, with each passing year I watch my retirement plan fade away.

This winter, I had bare ground at my house in January and I have it again now that we are in March. There is some snow in the woods and fields but it is not like it used to be. In a desperate effort to get some snowmobiling in before it is all gone, I rode around the fields and trails close to my house. My poor sled; I apologized every time I hit a rock that was unavoidable. There was dirt and rocks and very little base to ride on.

In January, the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement for a second time. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I heard about the hole in the ozone and how serious it was. The Paris Climate Agreement’s main focus was to prevent the earth’s temperature from rising more than it had, and after the agreement was signed, greenhouse gas emissions dropped almost immediately. Society as a whole, expected things to be done to curb the impact of a heating planet.

My friend and fellow hunter, trapper and angler Dr. Seth Campbell, is as an associate professor at the University of Maine. He has been to the North Pole, South Pole and everywhere in between to study the glaciers and their impact.

“Personally, I’m worried about climate change impacts in Maine. Especially on our trout, salmon, lobster, moose, and deer populations. I am also worried about the changing snowfall and water resources, and the potential increase of insect borne diseases,” Campbell said. “Whether you are a fisherman, hunter or trapper (I am all three) or work in fishing, forestry, agriculture, tourism or another Maine industry: human-driven climate change is already impacting you and will get worse if we don’t make significant changes. Climate change is a global issue and we need to deal with it at that scale because if we don’t, we all lose out.”

In the past couple of months, conservation efforts have been gutted across the country. Fish and Wildlife, the Forest Service and National Parks are being stripped of funding and employees. Regardless of your political affiliation, if you care about the outdoors, you have to be concerned about where things are headed.

We regularly hear people comment about how we have seen more ticks, more opossums, more turkey and more deer because the world around us is changing and warming up. Every year, there are new sharks sighting or types of eagles that appear where they should not be. Our once
cold, snowy winter is now a combination of snow, rain, ice and temperature swings of sub-zero to 40s and 50s.

I love the snow and all of the activities that we can enjoy in the winter. I want to see snow at Christmas and be able to cut a fresh buck track in the snow in November. Maybe that will never happen again. Maybe this is a move that will not be reversed in my lifetime. As Seth and I wrapped our conversation, we both agreed: “We must put differences aside and work together,” Seth said, “There are no perfect solutions but there are absolutely better solutions than the path we are currently going down. Right now, we are no longer even at the table for the most important conversation on Earth. And, many generations to come, including our own kids and youth, will suffer from poor decisions like this.”

Hunter, non-hunter, anti-hunter, I think we can all agree that we care about this planet and the health of the woods, waters, animals and fisheries. We want to pass down something that our children will love as much as we do and want to protect it as much as we do. We need to work together to make that happen. I hope we can before it’s too late.

Erin Merrill, an award-winning writer based in central Maine, writes “Hunt & Harvest” monthly. She welcomes emails at: Erin@andastrongcupofcoffee.com.