Holden's Tom O'Shea picked to lead Mass. Department of Fish and Game

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Holden's Tom O'Shea picked to lead Mass. Department of Fish and Game

Rebecca Tepper, secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environment announced the appointment of O'Shea, a Holden resident, as commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game. The organization works to preserve the state’s natural resources and protect and manage marine and freshwater fisheries, wildlife, plants and the habitats that support them. The position carries a $156,000 annual salary; O’Shea starts Monday.
 
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O’Shea is looking at long-term and short-term goals for Massachusetts starting with a survey of local needs, setting biodiversity goals and establishing core habitats.
And getting residents outside."
 
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O’Shea is looking at long-term and short-term goals for Massachusetts starting with a survey of local needs, setting biodiversity goals and establishing core habitats.

And getting residents outside."

Time will tell. The article seems to be more focused on climate change. The Trustees does a lot of good work.
 
Time will tell. The article seems to be more focused on climate change. The Trustees does a lot of good work.
Not anymore, sadly.

We have been vacationing on Chappaquiddick Island for over 20 years. We spend most days out on the Trustees property Cape Poge. We buy an oversand sticker for our truck and drive 4+ miles from the road, far away from any crowds.

I used to respect the Trustees for how they balanced conservation with access and how they governed the beach with a gentle hand. Sadly, I’ve learned that what I respected was the person in charge of Cape Poge (and other properties), Chris Kennedy. After Chris retired, it has all gone to crap,

Trustees have eliminated access to the Cape Poge Gut and the Elbow, two of the best fishing spots in Cape Poge. Last year they presented a draft beach management plan (four years after it was due) that would have eliminated access to about 1/2 the Cape Poge beaches. It’s reception by beach users and the Edgartown Conservation Commission could best be described as folks thinking about warming up the tar and gathering feathers. Trustees had been managing the Norton Point Beach for Edgartown and that contract was up for renewal. Trustees wisely realized that they were so hated that they didn’t even reapply to manage Norton Point Beach.

After their first beach management plan was shot down in flames, Trustees made a big show of being nice and engaging with the community prior to submitting a second draft. It was all for show. They never negotiated in good faith. Their second draft plan is basically the same as their first plan.

As a result of them being so late in submitting a beach management plan, we are likely to be limited to access only 50% of the beach this year.

There was a time when Trustees was apolitical, focusing on balancing conservation with access. But in the past four years, they’ve gone all woke. They are now focused on global warming, diversity/equity/inclusion, etc.

My wife and I don’t have any children. We have been reevaluating our will. At one point I considered putting Trustees as a major beneficiary. No longer. I won’t give them an effing dime more than our annual beach sticker.
 
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It seems that ever organization these days are going woke and now with our new leadership Massachusetts will be leading the way.

Many years ago my wife and I belonged to the MBBA and used to run the National Sea Shore enjoying the beach and fishing for blues and stripers.
We eventually gave it up. It just stopped being fun. The campground we stayed at in North Truro closed, the traffic keep getting worse and worse, the beach just got so over crowded it was hard to find a spot with all the cars parked nut to butt, and then there was the piping plover closures and restriction.
 
It seems that ever organization these days are going woke and now with our new leadership Massachusetts will be leading the way.

Commies always seize every position of power no matter how insignificant to grow their power. They are religious zealots on a mission. People that just want to be left alone or do some apolitical civic service in their spare time aren't able to compete with commies whose entire existence is based around being missionaries of their evil cult.
 
It seems that ever organization these days are going woke and now with our new leadership Massachusetts will be leading the way.

Many years ago my wife and I belonged to the MBBA and used to run the National Sea Shore enjoying the beach and fishing for blues and stripers.
We eventually gave it up. It just stopped being fun. The campground we stayed at in North Truro closed, the traffic keep getting worse and worse, the beach just got so over crowded it was hard to find a spot with all the cars parked nut to butt, and then there was the piping plover closures and restriction.
Conservation organizations in particular tend to be staffed by very left wing folks. Trustees had been refreshing before because they focused on access. In contrast, most conservation organizations seem to be happiest when their land is accessible by no one. Unfortunately, it seems that Trustees has been infected by this disease and they want to make more and more of Cape Poge off limits to oversand vehicles. The thing is, without a truck or a boat you simply can’t get to most of these locations. Most people can’t walk four miles up the beach while carrying fishing gear.
 
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I used to donate some of my time to the Trustees as I always thought that they do a lot of good. Who are they conserving properties for if there is no access. No one benefits. At least none of the regular folk.

Quabbin was closed to hunting for decades and the deer population exploded. After many years it came out that there was a private lodge there for the elites to hunt.

Property has to be actively managed to support game. Pheasant is a great example. They winter fine in the Dakotas but can’t survive here. What a joke. if we invested in providing the habitat we could have a great natural population.
 
if we invested in providing the habitat we could have a great natural population.
I remember as a kid, that we'd see wild pheasants strutting around. Think late 60's into the 70's. NEVER saw a turkey, coyote, deer, or eagle. Now, you'll see the latter, but not the former.

ANYHOW, back to Tom O'Shea. Is he intrinsically tied to this Trustees group? Does anybody actually know if he is going to be good or bad for us? Has anyone spoken with him yet?

It would be nice if our side could talk to him, and get a few statements on what he has planned for us, before he gets in the Sunday paper.
 
My opinion is that the organizations have realized that they can get more money from the government by preaching to the gods of climate change than by working for members. Mass Audubon has done the same. I gave up my membership because they pushed for the CPA in my town. They realized that by supporting larger government, they would get a bigger piece of the pie than dealing with members. Luckily, our town did not vote for the CPA, but many others did. Mass Audubon is pulling in even more money now, they don't really care about their members.

The final straw was their closure of their lands during COVID. They will do whatever .gov says since that is where the majority of there funding is coming from. They'll want a piece of the climate change money as well. They have already angled for some for carbon sequestration on the lands that they own. I could go on with other examples, but it all comes down to money.


I'd say the same for the Fish and Game in MA. There are few hunters anymore. They don't care since they can get more money by pandering at the altar of climate change. They'll get thrown $10 million for some bs and that will be way more than all the hunters combined give them. Hunters are no longer a stakeholder for the Fish and Game, they'd actually prefer if they were all gone so then they wouldn't have to do any work.
 
I remember as a kid, that we'd see wild pheasants strutting around. Think late 60's into the 70's. NEVER saw a turkey, coyote, deer, or eagle. Now, you'll see the latter, but not the former.

ANYHOW, back to Tom O'Shea. Is he intrinsically tied to this Trustees group? Does anybody actually know if he is going to be good or bad for us? Has anyone spoken with him yet?

It would be nice if our side could talk to him, and get a few statements on what he has planned for us, before he gets in the Sunday paper.
”this Trustees group” is Trustees of Reservations. Tom O’Shea is Vice President of Conservation and Resilience at Trustees. He was previously Director, Coastal and Natural Resources. He has been an employee at Trustees for 10 years. I found this out within 10 seconds using Google.

Based on his job description at Trustees and the period that he has been at those roles, I expect him to be a seriously leftie progressive who is all in on climate change and more interested in “conservation” (aka, keeping people out of properties) and diversity, equity, and inclusion than in improving access.

He is being appointed by Maura Healey. I expect him to be very bad for us.
 
”this Trustees group” is Trustees of Reservations. Tom O’Shea is Vice President of Conservation and Resilience at Trustees. He was previously Director, Coastal and Natural Resources. He has been an employee at Trustees for 10 years. I found this out within 10 seconds using Google.

Based on his job description at Trustees and the period that he has been at those roles, I expect him to be a seriously leftie progressive who is all in on climate change and more interested in “conservation” (aka, keeping people out of properties) and diversity, equity, and inclusion than in improving access.

He is being appointed by Maura Healey. I expect him to be very bad for us.

Exactly why I made my first post.
 
Holden's Tom O'Shea picked to lead Mass. Department of Fish and Game

Rebecca Tepper, secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environment announced the appointment of O'Shea, a Holden resident, as commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game. The organization works to preserve the state’s natural resources and protect and manage marine and freshwater fisheries, wildlife, plants and the habitats that support them. The position carries a $156,000 annual salary; O’Shea starts Monday.
Giving you the like for posting this, not because of Maura's appointment. We'll see how he does. Hopefully "getting people outside" includes hunting.
 
Nobody else seems to have mentioned it, and it seems important to this group. Don't know how it was missed up until now. Got the heads-up from the WCLSC group.
 
Giving you the like for posting this, not because of Maura's appointment. We'll see how he does. Hopefully "getting people outside" includes hunting.
He has a requirement to advance R3. I'll be at the meeting in May, representing Pink Pistols as one of our many shooting groups in MA. All we can do is remind them we're here and make ourselves part of the process.

Tangent - this is why I'm still hunting MA, rather than sitting out in protest - if we all step back they'll find their money elsewhere. "Clearly, MA doesn't want hunting any more. I guess we don't need to balance their use..."
 
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His brother Rick is a great bank-shooter. ;)


This guy is more fisherman than hunter. Not that that's a bad thing. MA fisheries is probably a far bigger operation. Except for the administration's "focus on combating climate change by charging more for fishing licenses" I didn't see a whole lot wrong with the article or this guy.
 
His brother Rick is a great bank-shooter. ;)


This guy is more fisherman than hunter. Not that that's a bad thing. MA fisheries is probably a far bigger operation. Except for the administration's "focus on combating climate change by charging more for fishing licenses" I didn't see a whole lot wrong with the article or this guy.
Trustees of Reservations is using climate change as the excuse for restricting access to about 1/2 of the Cape Poge property, including some of the best fishing spots on the island. This guy has been the boss of the person leading the charge to reduce access. So while he may claim to be a fisherman, his past actions have greatly harmed fishermen.

Don’t believe the lies that this guy has our best interests at heart — he doesn’t. He will screw us over 12 ways from Sunday in order to boost his credibility with the progressive climate change activists.
 
Similar experiences all the way back to the 1990's when I was active in the 4WD community. The greenies abhore any type of motorized access to anything, they always have, they always will.
They spend countless millions on stupid bike paths and bridges over highways, if they devoted even 1/4 of those amounts to motorized recreation in the state we'd have a decent trail system to use. Jeepers, ATVers, and dirtbikers completely gave up on this state about 20 years ago. Everyone now goes to NH.
 
He has a requirement to advance R3. I'll be at the meeting in May, representing Pink Pistols as one of our many sitting groups in MA. All we can do is remind them we're here and make ourselves part of the process.

Tangent - this is why I'm still hunting MA, rather than sitting out in protest - if we all step back they'll find their money elsewhere. "Clearly, MA doesn't want hunting any more. I guess we don't need to balance their use..."
I'm sitting out in protest this year and using my money to hunt other states. With kids out of the house and all bills paid, I'm done wasting what valuable vacation time I have hunting this piece of shit anymore.

Now that my dog is gone, not worth buying a license anymore, that was the only thing that had me holding on.

This clown is just another greenie hire, that will screw us for access by claiming climate change. 156K a year do nothing job.
 
Similar experiences all the way back to the 1990's when I was active in the 4WD community. The greenies abhore any type of motorized access to anything, they always have, they always will.
They spend countless millions on stupid bike paths and bridges over highways, if they devoted even 1/4 of those amounts to motorized recreation in the state we'd have a decent trail system to use. Jeepers, ATVers, and dirtbikers completely gave up on this state about 20 years ago. Everyone now goes to NH.
This will continue. They will pick what they like and weed out what they don't. As shown above, they were very successful at weeding out ATV/Dirtbike use by giving zero opportunites and using all off road funds against the off road community by spending it paving bike paths over and doing state police stings on ATV use areas.

Hunting is next......close access to large tracks, raise fees to where its not worth it, mismanage the deer/birds to where there are none so no one will hunt them.

You'll be able to fish, non motorized bike, play frisbee golf and walk here....that's it.
 
I'm sitting out in protest this year and using my money to hunt other states. With kids out of the house and all bills paid, I'm done wasting what valuable vacation time I have hunting this piece of shit anymore.

Now that my dog is gone, not worth buying a license anymore, that was the only thing that had me holding on.

This clown is just another greenie hire, that will screw us for access by claiming climate change. 156K a year do nothing job.
I totally respect your stance, and in your position might make the same decision.
 
I totally respect your stance, and in your position might make the same decision.
The state makes it easy really. Deer herd is very mismanaged by me...that I don't have a dog and will be focusing on deer hunting more. Yeah....not sticking around here.

Probably be Kentucky or Ohio, maybe PA, where I can look over 10X the deer in the same amount of time of sitting in MA.
 
The state makes it easy really. Deer herd is very mismanaged by me...that I don't have a dog and will be focusing on deer hunting more. Yeah....not sticking around here.

Probably be Kentucky or Ohio, maybe PA, where I can look over 10X the deer in the same amount of time of sitting in MA.
The big problem with deer hunting in MA is the overly large setback requirements which even affect bow hunting. Mass Wildlife know quite well that the largest problems with deer overpopulation are in eastern MA, where the setback rules make 98% of the land off limits for hunting. Have Mass Wildlife lobbied the legislature to reduce the setback limits, even if only for bow hunting? No, they haven’t done shit.
 
The big problem with deer hunting in MA is the overly large setback requirements which even affect bow hunting. Mass Wildlife know quite well that the largest problems with deer overpopulation are in eastern MA, where the setback rules make 98% of the land off limits for hunting. Have Mass Wildlife lobbied the legislature to reduce the setback limits, even if only for bow hunting? No, they haven’t done shit.
Agree.....they want to wait til it gets so bad towns can hire sharpshooters and kill them all.

Fxck the hunters.

This state can't even get crossbow passed, or Sunday bowhunting on private land.
 
His brother Rick is a great bank-shooter. ;)


This guy is more fisherman than hunter. Not that that's a bad thing. MA fisheries is probably a far bigger operation. Except for the administration's "focus on combating climate change by charging more for fishing licenses" I didn't see a whole lot wrong with the article or this guy.

The first thing that jumped out at me was what wasn’t there. Not a single mention of hunting or hunters.

Hunters are treated like sh!t in this state. Our entire deer population is less than many states deer kill.

It doesn’t have to be that way. They MDFW doesn’t do much of anything to support the deer population.
 
We could broadcast deer pornos in the central and western parts of the state to get the deer hornier. Maybe slip some corn whiskey in with the corn? Get them does "in the mood"????

We could restrict hunting licenses in the central/western part of MA for a decade and let the #'s grow that way, too.

I'm not sure what we are supposed to do. Honestly. While I'm being funny, I'm trying to get what the State is supposed to do. We get one guy that's pissed that an area is off limits to fishing (and it's one small area in a HUGE fishing ecosystem in the state). So restrictions aren't gonna fly for existing hunters.

But TBH, I'm a dumb fisherman (not being facetious - really I am). If there is something that the state SHOULD be doing, I'd like to hear about it.
 
Hunters are treated like sh!t in this state. Our entire deer population is less than many states deer kill.

It doesn’t have to be that way. They MDFW doesn’t do much of anything to support the deer population.
In the eastern part of MA (along with the Cape and Islands) we have far more deer per acre than is optimal. The issue isn’t the lack of deer. The issue is the setback limits which make it mostly impossible to legally hunt in eastern MA.
 
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