Gubernatorial candidates questioned about the Nelson or Pete the Moose amendment.

It is good to see that people have gotten the word about the damaging Nelson amendment and are questioning state officials about their involvement in it's passage.

From WCAX.comhttp://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=12973421:

Susan Bartlett was the champion of Pete the Moose, a wild animal that was nursed back to health after being attacked by dogs and abandoned by Vermont Fish and Wildlife. So Jim McGarry wanted Bartlett to explain the ethics behind her "Pete the Moose" amendment which was added into the finance bill but hidden from Fish and Wildlife.

"This Fish and Wildlife Department refused to do anything except to say the only solution is to slaughter," said Bartlett, "We disagreed with that. So we worked with the administration, and it was the administration that made the choice to not include its Fish and Wildlife Department."

From the Burlington Free Press:

In a discussion about transparency in government, Shumlin and Bartlett had to defend a last-minute provision tacked onto the state budget granting the owner of an elk-hunting park an exception to state law so he could also let an orphaned moose named Pete stay in his fenced acres and spare dozens of native deer within the park’s confines.
“You can absolutely pick one piece of my career and judge me if you want,” Bartlett said.
Shumlin said he now considers the amendment a mistake. “I sometimes do things in haste,” he said. “I should have had a better handle on what I was voting on.”

Read more: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010100811036#ixzz0wUI6GnYK