Over the past few weeks, there have been TV, Radio and newspaper reports about the increase in Massachusetts people visiting food pantries. It must be humiliating for proud people to enter a food pantry and feel as though they are begging for food. After viewing these reports, I have to wonder whether, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its community of non-profits are promoting a feeding the hungry program or is it propagandizing another welfare program?

Massachusetts has establish a Food Policy Councils to improve coordination among the many state agencies that regulate the Commonwealth’s food system along with bringing together interested parties across the state to improve the state’s food system and protect the land on which our food is grown. However, I have not observed any state agencies or the Food Policy Council recommend the high protein, low fat meat from wildlife as a source of food. .

In the past, especially, during the Depression years, many of the poor hungry people of the lower economic class in rural Massachusetts turned to wildlife to assist them in feeding their families. Hunting, trapping and fishing, allowed the people of the lower economic class (who are known as the working poor or the missing class) a proud feeling of putting food on the table; and with today’s freezer extending the meat for a future bounty and less hunger. Hunting, fishing and trapping helped stop the humiliating feelings of visiting a food pantry, especially, after a family had income vanished because of a job loss or another change in their economic situation, such as, a divorce.

It was supporters of Massachusetts non-profits, such as the Audubon Society, the MSPCA and others who helped take the self-esteem away from the missing class or working poor here. According to reports, these non-profits used a dog that lost part of its leg from a motor vehicle accident and they implied that the dog lost his leg because of a live catch foot-hold trap. This questionable information was put before the public during a political campaign here. The non-profits spent over a million dollars; with most of the money being spent on TV advertising showing the injured dog to support question one that was on the ballot in 1996.  The results eliminated the low cost equipment use by the poor to harvest wildlife. The tools became illegal. Now a group of the regulated  poor would have to visit food pantries and endure the embarrassment one feels begging for food rather than the proud feeling that only comes when a person self-supports their family.

There are bills before the Massachusetts Legislature, such as, an act valuing our natural resources or an act allowing hunting on Sunday. Both are reasonable approach to help manage the Commonwealth’s wildlife population. Furthermore, with these law changes, the working poor or missing class will have additional devices to help feed their families as they did in the past. Moreover, as the working poor or missing class, follow the natural world in rural or suburban communities; they would be assisting the public where wildlife, such as beavers, is considered a nuisance rather than natural resources.

Other organizations, such as the Committee for Responsible Wildlife Management (CRWM) http://www.macrwm.org are trying to educate the legislature about the benefits of pro-active wildlife management.  CRWM’s pro –active management course of action is supporting the working poor or missing class who will seek out natural resources with skill to feed their families. Everyone in the struggle could use the caring community to urge the legislature to help feed the hungry by encouraging the Massachusetts Food Policy Council to support all solutions to feed the hungry instead of regulating a group of people by administering government programs with its millions of dollars from taxpayers and business donations.