Maine Audubon Honors Wildlife Champions in the Legislature
Senator Rick Bennett (District 18 – Oxford County)
Senator Rick Bennett of Oxford County led two important bills: LD 1529, which helped Maine old-growth forests and undeveloped, remote ponds; and LD 356, to address harmful impacts from rodenticides. Both initiatives experienced all sorts of twists and turns, but Senator Bennett did not shy away from the hard conversations required to strike the right balance with all sorts of stakeholders to get these proposals passed. LD 1529 advances state planning efforts to conserve mature forests and undeveloped, remote ponds, tasking state agencies with developing a comprehensive report on strategies to enhance the conservation of our state’s oldest forests on public and private land statewide and require the Land Use Planning Commission—the zoning and planning authority for the Unorganized Territories—to consider the effectiveness of its lake management program and whether protections for certain lakes in this 10.4M acre area need to be revisited.
LD 356 directed Maine’s Board of Pesticides Control to establish restrictions on rodenticides in our state. Unfortunately, we know that the use of rodenticides to control mice and rat populations has impacts far beyond their intended targets. Too often, owls, hawks, foxes, raccoons, eagles, ravens, pet cats and dogs, and many more creatures may accidentally ingest these poisons, which were not intended for them. Because of this initiative, the Board recently proposed and subsequently passed consumer restrictions on the sale and use of the most concentrated and lethal type of this pesticide.
