Stirring up Issues is my Middle- Name

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

 Yes, I do like to stir you up. Guilty as charged there. And I hope that, by stirring you up, I also stir you on to taking action on some of the important projects and issues I write about and talk about every week on my radio broadcast of the Outdoor Scene.
Four years ago, when I left the my corporate world of Rhode Island in order to write full-time, I recognized that the issues we sportsmen and women care about get very little coverage in the daily news. In a state where one of my heroes, Bill Bodnar, Woonsocket Call 28 years and Tom Meade , Providence Journal , Dave Pickering and Todd Corayer, Fish Wrap Writer, wrote or currently write about hunting and fishing every day for northern Rhode Island’s newspapers, we are lucky to get any stories about hunting and fishing these days.
  I am attempting, in a very modest and limited way, to fill that gap. Here’s one example. While all New England Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife are preparing new game and fisheries management plans this year, and emphasizes that this process, this year, includes unprecedented opportunities for sportsmen, landowners, and the general public to participate, I am the only one so far who has written about the process and attended some of the meetings in order to tell you about them.
  I do not say this to brag. It actually discourages me that we are unable to attract more attention to something as important as this. There are huge challenges and important issues involved in creating these new plans and you need to be informed about this and to participate in the process.
  Something the reader didn’t complain about, but that others have, and my phone number is public is that I often express my opinions on these issues in this column. Well, yes again. This is my column. This is my radio program and I am not censored by the station as long as I do not cross the line with the FCC. I think some people believe bloggers are members of the news media, and should be forbidden from expressing opinions. I do not pretend to be a member of the news media. Period.

Clearly, I enjoy the legislative process, the opportunity to participate in wildlife issues and processes, the chance to influence the course of events, and the responses I get from readers of this Outdoor Scene news blog. I appreciate the fact that even those who disagree, and criticize me, are still reading these columns (2,932,259 views) every time they are posted. I swear one guy must sit there waiting for a new column, because he almost always, within seconds, posts his critical comments on my e-mail or phone voice mail.

 Whether it is youth firearms experts 11year old (Shyanne Roberts) Maine big game guides ( Lorenda Day Coombs, Brit Humphrey, Mike Keup) NWTF( Fred Bird) or NH trapper (Jeff Traynor) or Mr. Black Bear NH (Ben Kilham) State Representives

Fly fishing experts, Carp experts, Honey bee keepers or the Audubon Society, Canoe & Kayak experts, Block Island deer culling, sharing my photography, my mission is to try to interview, report and post ANY content in New England or national law changes that effect our outdoors.

Having participated in the political system for 50 years, and been in the public eye for much of that time, I have a very thick skin. So, fire away. I appreciate your passion for and participation in these issues.
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