MA Wildlife Likes to Kill the Innocent

I am devastated to read about the sad consequence of Mass Wildlife’s Dave Wattles’ keen and repeated loss of faith in typical humans. He’s eager to kill at least 250 bears – double the usual number – during this fall’s hunting season. They will lose their lives for no other reason than that Wattles has easily convinced his Board of Directors, the supermajority of whom are hunters, that people will never comply with prevention strategies. “Getting the public to change their behaviors and take this message seriously just doesn’t work,” he claimed in a May 15, 2025, Boston Globe article, "Surging bear population prompts state to expand hunting season."

Wattles mentioned his “dozens of press interviews and public educational events . . . about how to reduce bear activity in neighborhoods,” yet the Commonwealth has 324 municipalities, and I haven’t seen him near mine since he ordered the killing of random coyotes in Nahant in 2022. Wattles himself noted that “the biggest issue” is people leaving food sources on their decks and in their yards. How hard is it to stop doing that?

As usual, continued and concerted efforts to increase public awareness fall to the true animal conservationists and advocates, not those collecting salaries to “manage” our wildlife. The way to save bears – and any innocent creatures inhumanely dubbed “nuisance” – is through an unwillingness to give up on changing the human behavior that invites them in. More work at accomplishing this should be Mass Wildlife’s orders, rather than a simple prescription for death.

Deb Newman

Swampscott MA