Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 4 : Spring 2010 | Page 65

Promoting the Wildlife “Brand”
by Regis Trembly

Promoting the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife “brand”
and our role in protecting, preserving, and enhancing Maine’s
natural resources is the mission of the Public Information and
Education Division within IF&W.

With a very small, but highly talented and creative staff,
I&E, as we are more commonly known, is tasked with informing
and educating our numerous and varied constituencies here in
Maine and around the globe. To that end, we have embraced
the Internet and Social Media to reach more people with fresh,
timely, and important information that they need to make
informed decisions.

Because Maine’s natural resources and our very identify
are at risk due to a serious downturn in the economy, a fast
changing landscape, and shifts in outdoor recreational pursuits,
it is more important now than ever for Mainer’s and visitors to
keep abreast of trends that are changing our lifestyles and what
we do in this beautiful and magical place.

In order to connect with our customers and constituents,
we are now using Social Media to reach as many people as possible
with our messages. For those not familiar with Social Media, it
is quite simply the coordinated use of our Internet Home Page,
Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and blogs. You can find links to these
media on our website at www.mefishwildlife.com

In just over three months on Facebook, we have close to
3,000 “friends.” Facebook is the most amazing site that connects
people instantly and exponentially. Our Facebook page posts
important news, events, and information that people need and
want to know. It links visitors to our blogs, Youtube, the Home
Page, and our Twitter page.

Our Youtube “channel” hosts several video productions
from TV shows and documentaries, to PSA’s and safety
messages.

If you “Tweet” you can keep up with the activities of our
outdoor educator, our marketing representative, and our media
relations representative. You can also follow our blogs: Inland
Tracks, The Director’s Cut, the Insider and The Heron, a site on
the Great Blue Heron maintained by one of our field biologists.

There’s also lots of news and interesting articles in
our monthly on-line magazine, The Insider, and our quarterly
magazine, Maine Fish and Wildlife, is now being viewed by an
average of 17,000 people from Maine and around the world.

And that’s not all. Soon, our weekly TV show, the
IF&W Insider, will be available on many of Maine’s community
access stations. These shows will give you an inside look at our
biologists, hatchery workers, and game wardens as they do their
part to protect, preserve and enhance our natural resources. You’ll
come with us on amazing journeys as we follow our biologists
and wardens into the wilderness and back country. You’ll see our
biologists studying bald eagles, black bears, deer, moose, Lynx,
Black Racer snakes, the beautiful wild Maine Brook Trout and so
much more. And, you will hear informed discussions about the
issues and challenges your Department is dealing with.

We’ll take you on Search and Rescue missions with our
game wardens, and into the woods and onto the waters as they

work to enforce the laws of the State that protect our fish and
wildlife and the environment.

For those sportsmen and women who attend the various
trade shows around the State, be sure to visit our booth. We are
there to talk with you, provide all sorts of important information,
and to bring your Department closer to you who have supported
conservation and the resources for over 100 years by buying
licenses, permits, and by registering your recreational vehicles.

We’ve done all this because we want you to come to us
first for the news, information, and facts about everything from
budgets to legislation, from landowner relations to loss of habitat,
from deer management to the recovery of the bald eagle, and to
stay abreast of what is happening in the Legislature where that
laws affecting your use of the resources are made.