Darryl Brown got grilled in Augusta Tuesday afternoon, and by my estimate, he is now well done. Or should I say he’s done well?

Governor Paul LePage took his case for the business environment to those who most value the other environment – the one outside your window – on January 20 at the Augusta Civic Center. Over 500 environmentalists turned out, many of them worried by what they’d been hearing from the new governor about rolling back environmental rules and protections.

Seventy-five people from the recreation and landowner communities and state agencies convened for a landowner relations conference on December 9, 2010. The Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine (SWOAM) and Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM) hosted the event, with funding help from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund and the Environmental Funders Network. Edie Smith of Maine Directions in Winthrop organized and moderated the event held at SAM’s Augusta conference center.

“The year 1805 will long be remembered on account of the advent of the wolves from Canada to the State of Maine and other parts of New England. They came in droves, and their howling was a terror to everyone.”

This important event may not be remembered these days, but it won’t be forgotten either, thanks to a valuable new book, Early Maine Wildlife, by William Krohne and Christopher Hoving, published in 2010 by the University of Maine Press.

Most members of the legislature’s Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife joined Governor Paul LePage in endorsing the ambitious legislative agenda of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine in a candidate survey distributed by SAM’s political action committee prior to the November 2010 election.

IF&W Committee members are: Senators Thomas Martin, Dave Trahan, and John Patrick; and Representatives Paul Davis, Ralph Sarty, Dale Crafts, Eleanor Espling, Stacey Guerin, Stephen Wood, Herb Clark, Jane Eberle, Sheryl Briggs, and Michael Shaw.

Hello, my fellow Mainers. There are some still-wrapped gifts under your Christmas tree. Let’s open them now.

First up, a new brochure, Your Maine Lands Recreational Map & Guide to Public Reserved Lands, published by the Bureau of Parks and Lands. The map is free and will also be available soon at www.parksandlands.com, thanks to a grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund.

The Maine League of Conservation Voters endorsed only six of the twenty-six members of two key legislative committees in the 2010 election, certainly a concern of this coalition of the state’s thirty leading environmental organizations.

Sportsmen are a happier lot. The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine endorsed fourteen of the twenty-six members of the two key committees and awarded grades of “A” to another five committee members.

Finally! Six candidates for Commissioner of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife are scheduled to be interviewed on Thursday, December 23.

Last Thursday, Governor-elect Paul LePage told me he’d have an IF&W Commissioner by the end of the month, and that interviews were scheduled for this week. For these interviews, LePage has added some people who are not on the Transition Advisory Team.

Sportsmen and other outdoor recreationists may get a couple of Christmas presents this week from Governor-elect Paul LePage: Commissioners of the Departments of Marine Resources and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week (December 20 and 21), members of the LePage transition team are interviewing commissioner candidates for the Department of Marine Resources.

Nine applicants will be interviewed for the position of Commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources. Incumbent Commissioner George LaPointe tops the list.

Two of the three parcels involved in a complicated deal between Roxanne Quimby (through her Elliotsville Plantation corporation), the Trust for Public Land, and Maine’s Bureau of Parks and Lands, are finally ready to change hands.

It took all afternoon on December 13, at a hastily called meeting at the Department of Conservation, for the parties to agree on revisions to the original deal. The Board of the Land for Maine’s Future program approved its part of the revised deal a day later.