MISSOURIANS STOP THIS NUT
02-21-2003, 10:42 AM
#1
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Jackson Mo USA
Posts: 323
MISSOURIANS STOP THIS NUT
This pretty much tells the story. From yesterdays Columbia Tribune...
http://www.showmenews.com/2003/Feb/20030220News018.asp
=============================
Conservation funds targeted
Senator calls for reauthorization vote.
Published Thursday, February 20, 2003
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - Voters would get a chance every four years to decide if the Missouri Department of Conservation should continue to receive specialized tax revenue under a proposal backed by a rural state senator.
Sen. John Cauthorn’s measure, introduced yesterday, would ask voters every four years to reauthorize the one-eighth-cent sales tax originally approved by voters in 1976.
The measure also includes a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution, to be placed on the November 2004 ballot, clearing the way for the periodic tax votes. If the amendment is adopted, the first tax vote would occur in 2006.
Established in the state constitution, the conservation department has a budget of $125 million but does not receive any general state tax revenue.
The department has been under fire since last year’s release of a state audit that concluded the agency might have spent millions of dollars unnecessarily and failed to properly monitor how its grants are used.
The audit also showed that the department’s operating costs increased from 50 percent of its total expenditures in 1982 to 83 percent of its total expenditures in the last fiscal year.
Department officials concurred with some of the audit’s findings but said there was a feeling that many of the agency’s programs were unfairly targeted.
Cauthorn, R-Mexico, predicted his bill would be amended to provide for the reauthorization vote every 10 years instead of every four.
" We have had some problems with the conservation department, but I think we need to see how much support is out there for them," Cauthorn said. " It would provide be a good broad spectrum on how certain segments of the state would vote on that issue."
Cauthorn said the agricultural community supports the department because of hunting and fishing programs but has concerns about some of its environmental policies, which he did not describe.
Denise Garnier, legal counsel for the conservation department and a former legislative staffer, said the department is disappointed that Cauthorn is proposing periodic votes on the tax.
" If the tax were to fail, the immediate impact would be a reduction of well over 50 if not 60 percent of the department’s revenue multiplied by the loss of federal matching money," Garnier said. " It would also put the department in competition with all the other state agencies for revenues appropriated by the General Assembly."
Since Missouri voters approved the sales tax, more than $1 billion has been raised for land acquisitions, nature centers and other conservation programs.
With the income from the tax as well as from license fees and federal programs, Missouri ranks third in the nation behind California and Florida in total spending on conservation.
http://www.showmenews.com/2003/Feb/20030220News018.asp
=============================
Conservation funds targeted
Senator calls for reauthorization vote.
Published Thursday, February 20, 2003
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - Voters would get a chance every four years to decide if the Missouri Department of Conservation should continue to receive specialized tax revenue under a proposal backed by a rural state senator.
Sen. John Cauthorn’s measure, introduced yesterday, would ask voters every four years to reauthorize the one-eighth-cent sales tax originally approved by voters in 1976.
The measure also includes a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution, to be placed on the November 2004 ballot, clearing the way for the periodic tax votes. If the amendment is adopted, the first tax vote would occur in 2006.
Established in the state constitution, the conservation department has a budget of $125 million but does not receive any general state tax revenue.
The department has been under fire since last year’s release of a state audit that concluded the agency might have spent millions of dollars unnecessarily and failed to properly monitor how its grants are used.
The audit also showed that the department’s operating costs increased from 50 percent of its total expenditures in 1982 to 83 percent of its total expenditures in the last fiscal year.
Department officials concurred with some of the audit’s findings but said there was a feeling that many of the agency’s programs were unfairly targeted.
Cauthorn, R-Mexico, predicted his bill would be amended to provide for the reauthorization vote every 10 years instead of every four.
" We have had some problems with the conservation department, but I think we need to see how much support is out there for them," Cauthorn said. " It would provide be a good broad spectrum on how certain segments of the state would vote on that issue."
Cauthorn said the agricultural community supports the department because of hunting and fishing programs but has concerns about some of its environmental policies, which he did not describe.
Denise Garnier, legal counsel for the conservation department and a former legislative staffer, said the department is disappointed that Cauthorn is proposing periodic votes on the tax.
" If the tax were to fail, the immediate impact would be a reduction of well over 50 if not 60 percent of the department’s revenue multiplied by the loss of federal matching money," Garnier said. " It would also put the department in competition with all the other state agencies for revenues appropriated by the General Assembly."
Since Missouri voters approved the sales tax, more than $1 billion has been raised for land acquisitions, nature centers and other conservation programs.
With the income from the tax as well as from license fees and federal programs, Missouri ranks third in the nation behind California and Florida in total spending on conservation.
02-21-2003, 10:43 AM
#2
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Jackson Mo USA
Posts: 323
RE: MISSOURIANS STOP THIS NUT
APATHY is the NO.1 killer in the UNITED STATE for wildlife and the heritage of hunting.
Where do you stand. Tell them what you think here.
http://capwiz.com/wlfa/dbq/officials...tedir&state=MO
Where do you stand. Tell them what you think here.
http://capwiz.com/wlfa/dbq/officials...tedir&state=MO
02-21-2003, 10:43 AM
#3
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Jackson Mo USA
Posts: 323
RE: MISSOURIANS STOP THIS NUT
Storm Warnings, Part 1
http://www.fieldandstream.com/fields...217086,00.html
by Bob Marshall
American fish and wildlife management, once the envy of the world for its funding and accomplishments, is going broke.
When he went to work for the Washington Department of Game and Fish in 1974, Pat Fowler was the only wildlife biologist in his district. Twenty-seven years later that has not changed. But because it hasn' t, others things have.
Fowler no longer does chukar partridge surveys along the breaks of the Grande Ronde. He' s cancelled the spring elk surveys, too. And last year, he had to guesstimate the buck-doe harvest after deer season.
In a state with a booming economy, fish and wildlife management has been left behind.
" I pride myself in doing a good job," Fowler says. " But I' m spread so thin I' m just skimming over the surface of what has to be done."
The Rock and the Hard Place
There was a time when a story like Fowler' s would have been the exception in American fish and wildlife management. Not anymore.
A yearlong investigation by Field & Stream confirms what conservation groups have claimed for a decade: American fish and wildlife management, once the envy of the world for its funding and accomplishments, is going broke. State agencies, the backbone of natural-resource programs in the United States, are barreling toward a financial meltdown that could devastate the nation' s fish and wildlife resources.
A review of state agencies shows that nearly two-thirds are either in financial crisis or fast approaching it. Staggered by dwindling budgets but faced with increasing responsibilities, many agencies are caught between a rock and a hard place. As a result, they have been reducing or freezing staffs and streamlining or canceling traditional fish and wildlife management programs-sometimes in favor of work unrelated to hunting and fishing.
Interviews with administrators and field personnel from Washington to Florida and Maine to California provided snapshots of a system slipping into disarray.
In Vermont, game wardens were doing rabies patrol.
Wyoming' s agency has the same size staff it had 20 years ago.
Delaware biologists had to leave fisheries work to make certain endangered shorebirds had enough crab eggs to migrate to the Arctic.
Louisiana faced closing half its wildlife management areas.
In Maryland, jobs went unfilled for two years at a time, and field personnel routinely worked without pay.
Colorado shelved vital research on the demise of mule deer.
Utah left 25 positions vacant due to lack of funding.
" We' re not approaching a crisis in this country in fish and game management; we' re already there," says Paul Hansen, executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America. " What this country doesn' t understand is that sportsmen' s dollars didn' t just make fish and wildlife available to hunters and anglers; that money made them available to everyone else, too. Now we' re in big trouble, because the system is broke and has been for many years."
Ignoring the Obvious That system was simple: Let hunters and anglers pay. For 80 years it worked. Sportsmen' s state license fees and the federal excise taxes they pay on gear poured more than $10 billion into fish and wildlife restoration. The impact changed America from a nation whose fish and wildlife legacy was being destroyed to a conservation model for the world.
Twenty years ago that began to change. The number of sportsmen went flat, then began declining. At the same time the cost of business was soaring and agencies were being handed mountains of new responsibilities from state and federal lawmakers. Soon income didn' t meet expenses.
The trend was obvious, but with few exceptions neither the states nor the nation responded. Even as the roaring economy of the 1990s brought unprecedented wealth to the rest of America, her fish and wildlife resources were not brought along for the ride. Today nearly 70 percent of all fish and wildlife funding in the nation still depends on that declining pool of sportsmen' s dollars because the general public remains uninvolved. Many state natural-resource agencies are now waking up to a vast financial train wreck, like the one now facing the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, which predicts its operating fund will fall from $27 million to $13 million between 2000 and 2005.
According to Kentucky administrators, the loss of funds is attributable to one incontrovertible fact: Since 1989, the number of license holders has fallen by 1.4 percent a year. That' s a total loss of 14 percent in all, and the downward trend is not expected to change. Meanwhile, the state contributed nothing to the agency from its general fund.
That scenario has been the status quo for most states since the 1980s, and the root cause of a financial crisis already taking a toll on America' s sportsmen and her natural resources. And that root cause has led to troubling developments across the country, including these four:
1. Two-thirds of all states rely on license fees for 80 percent of their funding. Nineteen states get no help at all from their states' general funds. Most of those states have been tightening their fiscal belts for years by trimming back the workload, by not filling positions that become vacant, and by relying on aging equipment.
New Jersey finds itself in a common predicament: " Right now, we have seven enforcement officers to cover an estimated 800,000 anglers," says Bob McDowell, director of the state' s Division of Fish and Wildlife. " Do the math. The money going back into the equation doesn' t keep up with the size of the resource and the size of the fishery."
2. Sportsmen' s dollars are increasingly being used to fund nongame or endangered-species programs at the expense of traditional fish and wildlife operations. Although agency heads believe these programs ultimately benefit all wildlife, they admit sportsmen are being shortchanged.
Lee Perry, commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, tells a story that was repeated from coast to coast. " Since we went from a ' game' to a ' wildlife' agency in 1975, the expectations of the public have increased," he says. " We have more and more individual groups that are focused on their own agenda, and they all want us to do more."
Perry says no programs have been eliminated but adds, " There' s no question that traditional fish and wildlife programs are slipping behind as a result of the added demands."
3. Infrastructure, the physical properties that make hunting and fishing possible, has taken a beating in many states. Maintenance of boat ramps, fish hatcheries, reservoirs, ponds, dams, and road systems-as well as land acquisition-has been abandoned as agencies strive to do the basics. Even states that are covering their expenses have a rising tide of infrastructure bills that threaten to swamp them.
Pennsylvania is a worst-case example. While currently in the black, it has a $72 million backlog of infrastructure repairs, yet its agency has a total budget of less than $46 million. Perhaps most worrisome is its inability to purchase and protect public fish and wildlife habitat when things get tight.
" Our land-acquisition plans went from 3 million acres to zero," says Vern Ross, executive director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. " That was a really tough one to swallow."
4. Many states with strong economies give little or no funding for public fish and wildlife programs, leaving that entirely on the shoulders of sportsmen. Washington was a typical case. In 2000, it had a booming population and a prosperous economy, yet the average resident paid just 50¢ per year on fish and wildlife management-20¢ less than in 1990. Washington hunters, meanwhile, paid $80 to $149 per year, but their numbers are declining.
Dead End
In an effort to stay solvent, most states have resorted to fleecing nonresident hunters and fishers. Visiting sportsmen, often hunting on national lands their taxes help manage, sometimes find themselves paying fees four times greater than locals must meet.
The practice is most common in the West, where states with small populations often are invaded by hundreds or thousands of nonresidents in the fall. Incredibly, agencies in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana typically derive from 63 to 75 percent of their income from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses; 70 percent of that income comes from nonresidents.
" The nonresidents are the ones we balance the books off of," admits Jeff Obrecht, of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
It' s a strategy state agencies know leads to a dead end.
" You can sock it to the nonresident like crazy to get yourself over the hump," says Russell George, director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife. " The question is, when do people quit buying because the price is too high?"
On the other hand, even though fish- and wildlife-based industries contribute billions to state coffers, the states continue to undervalue them, charging license fees that, when adjusted for inflation, often are lower than they were years ago. Rhode Island is typical. Since 1987, it has cost a resident just $9.50 to fish all year long. Compare that to the $30 for four to five hours on a public golf course or $50 to ski for a day. If the license fee had been adjusted for inflation, it would now cost $18.50-still a bargain.
Three-Legged Stool
Wildlife professionals say the root of the problems can be traced to one cause: the broken funding model. " Our funding base is a three-legged stool, with bailing wire holding the three legs together," says Maine' s Perry, who heads an agency that has the same number of field personnel it did 25 years ago.
" We' re barely able to hold on right now," says Andrew Maumus, director of the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife. " If someone stops bailing the boat, we' re going to sink."
The impacts of that sinking, experts say, will reach far beyond hunting and fishing to the nation at large. Sportsmen' s dollars not only rebuilt fish and wildlife populations large enough for nonhunters and nonfishers to enjoy, but also preserved millions of acres of open space that provide recreational habitat for humans. Those resources also are the foundation for a long list of nonconsumptive industries, including boating, hiking, cycling, wildlife viewing, and more. And recent studies by private groups have found that to most Americans, access to open space, fish, and wildlife is a major consideration in measuring quality of life.
" Recreation is the second-largest industry in the economy, next to managed health care," says the Izaak Walton League' s Hansen. " You would think, in a nation so committed to a market economy, the states and Congress would understand the importance of not just protecting these resources but investing in them."
Yet that hasn' t happened. Although states actively court other industries with incentive packages measuring in the hundreds of millions of dollars, few invest in outdoors recreation managed by state agencies. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates fish- and wildlife-based industries pour more than $5 billion in tax revenue into state coffers, yet 31 states reinvest less than 10 percent of that revenue in the agencies that manage those industries.
The lack of investment has now placed the whole system at risk, managers say.
" Letting this happen makes no sense, environmentally or economically. But there just hasn' t been the political will for change. We still think, somehow, that it' s possible or fair for 40 million sportsmen to pay the bill for 280 million people," says Hansen. " We' ve reached the breaking point." He may be right.
Next month in part 2: Looking for a silver lining.
Additional reporting by Scott Bestul, Philip Bourjaily, Gary Garth, Rich Landers, John McCoy, Doug Pike, Lawrence Pyne, and Bob Saile.
http://www.fieldandstream.com/fields...217086,00.html
by Bob Marshall
American fish and wildlife management, once the envy of the world for its funding and accomplishments, is going broke.
When he went to work for the Washington Department of Game and Fish in 1974, Pat Fowler was the only wildlife biologist in his district. Twenty-seven years later that has not changed. But because it hasn' t, others things have.
Fowler no longer does chukar partridge surveys along the breaks of the Grande Ronde. He' s cancelled the spring elk surveys, too. And last year, he had to guesstimate the buck-doe harvest after deer season.
In a state with a booming economy, fish and wildlife management has been left behind.
" I pride myself in doing a good job," Fowler says. " But I' m spread so thin I' m just skimming over the surface of what has to be done."
The Rock and the Hard Place
There was a time when a story like Fowler' s would have been the exception in American fish and wildlife management. Not anymore.
A yearlong investigation by Field & Stream confirms what conservation groups have claimed for a decade: American fish and wildlife management, once the envy of the world for its funding and accomplishments, is going broke. State agencies, the backbone of natural-resource programs in the United States, are barreling toward a financial meltdown that could devastate the nation' s fish and wildlife resources.
A review of state agencies shows that nearly two-thirds are either in financial crisis or fast approaching it. Staggered by dwindling budgets but faced with increasing responsibilities, many agencies are caught between a rock and a hard place. As a result, they have been reducing or freezing staffs and streamlining or canceling traditional fish and wildlife management programs-sometimes in favor of work unrelated to hunting and fishing.
Interviews with administrators and field personnel from Washington to Florida and Maine to California provided snapshots of a system slipping into disarray.
In Vermont, game wardens were doing rabies patrol.
Wyoming' s agency has the same size staff it had 20 years ago.
Delaware biologists had to leave fisheries work to make certain endangered shorebirds had enough crab eggs to migrate to the Arctic.
Louisiana faced closing half its wildlife management areas.
In Maryland, jobs went unfilled for two years at a time, and field personnel routinely worked without pay.
Colorado shelved vital research on the demise of mule deer.
Utah left 25 positions vacant due to lack of funding.
" We' re not approaching a crisis in this country in fish and game management; we' re already there," says Paul Hansen, executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America. " What this country doesn' t understand is that sportsmen' s dollars didn' t just make fish and wildlife available to hunters and anglers; that money made them available to everyone else, too. Now we' re in big trouble, because the system is broke and has been for many years."
Ignoring the Obvious That system was simple: Let hunters and anglers pay. For 80 years it worked. Sportsmen' s state license fees and the federal excise taxes they pay on gear poured more than $10 billion into fish and wildlife restoration. The impact changed America from a nation whose fish and wildlife legacy was being destroyed to a conservation model for the world.
Twenty years ago that began to change. The number of sportsmen went flat, then began declining. At the same time the cost of business was soaring and agencies were being handed mountains of new responsibilities from state and federal lawmakers. Soon income didn' t meet expenses.
The trend was obvious, but with few exceptions neither the states nor the nation responded. Even as the roaring economy of the 1990s brought unprecedented wealth to the rest of America, her fish and wildlife resources were not brought along for the ride. Today nearly 70 percent of all fish and wildlife funding in the nation still depends on that declining pool of sportsmen' s dollars because the general public remains uninvolved. Many state natural-resource agencies are now waking up to a vast financial train wreck, like the one now facing the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, which predicts its operating fund will fall from $27 million to $13 million between 2000 and 2005.
According to Kentucky administrators, the loss of funds is attributable to one incontrovertible fact: Since 1989, the number of license holders has fallen by 1.4 percent a year. That' s a total loss of 14 percent in all, and the downward trend is not expected to change. Meanwhile, the state contributed nothing to the agency from its general fund.
That scenario has been the status quo for most states since the 1980s, and the root cause of a financial crisis already taking a toll on America' s sportsmen and her natural resources. And that root cause has led to troubling developments across the country, including these four:
1. Two-thirds of all states rely on license fees for 80 percent of their funding. Nineteen states get no help at all from their states' general funds. Most of those states have been tightening their fiscal belts for years by trimming back the workload, by not filling positions that become vacant, and by relying on aging equipment.
New Jersey finds itself in a common predicament: " Right now, we have seven enforcement officers to cover an estimated 800,000 anglers," says Bob McDowell, director of the state' s Division of Fish and Wildlife. " Do the math. The money going back into the equation doesn' t keep up with the size of the resource and the size of the fishery."
2. Sportsmen' s dollars are increasingly being used to fund nongame or endangered-species programs at the expense of traditional fish and wildlife operations. Although agency heads believe these programs ultimately benefit all wildlife, they admit sportsmen are being shortchanged.
Lee Perry, commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, tells a story that was repeated from coast to coast. " Since we went from a ' game' to a ' wildlife' agency in 1975, the expectations of the public have increased," he says. " We have more and more individual groups that are focused on their own agenda, and they all want us to do more."
Perry says no programs have been eliminated but adds, " There' s no question that traditional fish and wildlife programs are slipping behind as a result of the added demands."
3. Infrastructure, the physical properties that make hunting and fishing possible, has taken a beating in many states. Maintenance of boat ramps, fish hatcheries, reservoirs, ponds, dams, and road systems-as well as land acquisition-has been abandoned as agencies strive to do the basics. Even states that are covering their expenses have a rising tide of infrastructure bills that threaten to swamp them.
Pennsylvania is a worst-case example. While currently in the black, it has a $72 million backlog of infrastructure repairs, yet its agency has a total budget of less than $46 million. Perhaps most worrisome is its inability to purchase and protect public fish and wildlife habitat when things get tight.
" Our land-acquisition plans went from 3 million acres to zero," says Vern Ross, executive director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. " That was a really tough one to swallow."
4. Many states with strong economies give little or no funding for public fish and wildlife programs, leaving that entirely on the shoulders of sportsmen. Washington was a typical case. In 2000, it had a booming population and a prosperous economy, yet the average resident paid just 50¢ per year on fish and wildlife management-20¢ less than in 1990. Washington hunters, meanwhile, paid $80 to $149 per year, but their numbers are declining.
Dead End
In an effort to stay solvent, most states have resorted to fleecing nonresident hunters and fishers. Visiting sportsmen, often hunting on national lands their taxes help manage, sometimes find themselves paying fees four times greater than locals must meet.
The practice is most common in the West, where states with small populations often are invaded by hundreds or thousands of nonresidents in the fall. Incredibly, agencies in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana typically derive from 63 to 75 percent of their income from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses; 70 percent of that income comes from nonresidents.
" The nonresidents are the ones we balance the books off of," admits Jeff Obrecht, of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
It' s a strategy state agencies know leads to a dead end.
" You can sock it to the nonresident like crazy to get yourself over the hump," says Russell George, director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife. " The question is, when do people quit buying because the price is too high?"
On the other hand, even though fish- and wildlife-based industries contribute billions to state coffers, the states continue to undervalue them, charging license fees that, when adjusted for inflation, often are lower than they were years ago. Rhode Island is typical. Since 1987, it has cost a resident just $9.50 to fish all year long. Compare that to the $30 for four to five hours on a public golf course or $50 to ski for a day. If the license fee had been adjusted for inflation, it would now cost $18.50-still a bargain.
Three-Legged Stool
Wildlife professionals say the root of the problems can be traced to one cause: the broken funding model. " Our funding base is a three-legged stool, with bailing wire holding the three legs together," says Maine' s Perry, who heads an agency that has the same number of field personnel it did 25 years ago.
" We' re barely able to hold on right now," says Andrew Maumus, director of the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife. " If someone stops bailing the boat, we' re going to sink."
The impacts of that sinking, experts say, will reach far beyond hunting and fishing to the nation at large. Sportsmen' s dollars not only rebuilt fish and wildlife populations large enough for nonhunters and nonfishers to enjoy, but also preserved millions of acres of open space that provide recreational habitat for humans. Those resources also are the foundation for a long list of nonconsumptive industries, including boating, hiking, cycling, wildlife viewing, and more. And recent studies by private groups have found that to most Americans, access to open space, fish, and wildlife is a major consideration in measuring quality of life.
" Recreation is the second-largest industry in the economy, next to managed health care," says the Izaak Walton League' s Hansen. " You would think, in a nation so committed to a market economy, the states and Congress would understand the importance of not just protecting these resources but investing in them."
Yet that hasn' t happened. Although states actively court other industries with incentive packages measuring in the hundreds of millions of dollars, few invest in outdoors recreation managed by state agencies. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates fish- and wildlife-based industries pour more than $5 billion in tax revenue into state coffers, yet 31 states reinvest less than 10 percent of that revenue in the agencies that manage those industries.
The lack of investment has now placed the whole system at risk, managers say.
" Letting this happen makes no sense, environmentally or economically. But there just hasn' t been the political will for change. We still think, somehow, that it' s possible or fair for 40 million sportsmen to pay the bill for 280 million people," says Hansen. " We' ve reached the breaking point." He may be right.
Next month in part 2: Looking for a silver lining.
Additional reporting by Scott Bestul, Philip Bourjaily, Gary Garth, Rich Landers, John McCoy, Doug Pike, Lawrence Pyne, and Bob Saile.
02-21-2003, 10:44 AM
#4
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Jackson Mo USA
Posts: 323
RE: MISSOURIANS STOP THIS NUT
Storm Warnings Part 2 -http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/conservation/article/0,13199,220769,00.html
by Bob Marshall
America' s fish and wildlife agencies are going broke. The answer, say some experts, is to share the load.
In the summer of 2000 Louisiana sportsmen got back-to-back shocks, the kind that are becoming familiar to hunters and anglers across the country.
First, the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said it would have to double license fees or shut down half of its services.
Then, after the fee hikes were approved, the other shoe dropped: The agency admitted the increases wouldn’t stave off disaster for long.
“This was only a temporary fix; we’ll be back in the same boat in a few years,” says James Patton, the agency’s deputy secretary.
The reason?
“Sportsmen’s license fees just can no longer pay the bills for everyone’s fish and wildlife,” he explains. “There are two real long-term solutions out there. We go with something like Missouri or something like CARA.”
Missouri and CARA. The words are familiar at fish and wildlife agencies across the country because they are the two life rafts that could keep them from drowning in a sea of red ink.
Missouri is shorthand for the Missouri Conservation Tax, a 1977 measure that dedicated one-eighth of 1 percent of a sales tax to the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), making that state the first to tap all of its citizens for the cost of managing fish and wildlife.
CARA is the acronym for the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, a congressional plan that would divert billions of offshore oil royalties to state fish and wildlife agencies.
Sharing the Load
The money is sorely needed.
A yearlong examination by Field & Stream revealed that many of the nation’s fish and wildlife agencies are going broke because sportsmen’s license fees and excise taxes, long the primary support for most agencies, haven’t kept pace with the rising costs of management for more than a decade. As the funding mechanism for the world’s most successful fish and wildlife programs has failed, services have been cut back, resources are being neglected, and the infrastructure that supports public hunting and fishing is crumbling.
In a scramble to stop the bleeding, agencies have resorted to numerous funding schemes, from specialty license plates and lottery proceeds to sky-high nonresident license fees. But agency heads are near-unanimous in their beliefs that there is only one long-term solution: Nonhunters and nonanglers-the overwhelming majority of the population-must contribute on a regular basis.
Currently, nearly 70 percent of all fish and wildlife funding in the nation still depends on the declining pool of sportsmen-even though the businesses managed by those agencies pour billions in tax dollars back into the general economy, benefiting all citizens.
This conclusion troubles Rick Story, vice president of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance. “As the economy tightens, nontraditional sources of funding will be diverted by the government to pay for social programs. You can bet your paycheck on it,” he says. “The best thing that can happen to wildlife in America is that more hunters, anglers, and trappers join our ranks. It’s the only way to ensure that adequate dollars will be there to take care of wildlife and wild places.”
Most experts, however, predict that the number of sportsmen will fall, not grow, in coming years. Right now, “there simply aren’t enough sportsmen to pay all the bills anymore,” says Paul Hansen, executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America. “If you want healthy fish and wildlife for the whole state, then everyone has to contribute, just like they do for roads and schools.”
And that leads to one of two alternatives, managers say: CARA or Missouri. “Missouri is the model most people would choose, because it is sound and dependable,” says Patton. “History has shown that.”
Indeed. Some states have agency-dedicated sales taxes that affect only sporting-related items. There are two drawbacks to those plans, critics say. First, the tax only touches a small proportion of the citizenry. Second, they are just another way of making sportsmen pay more. As the number of sportsmen declines, so does revenue.
The Power of Pennies
That isn’t the case in Missouri. From the start Missouri’s Conservation Sales Tax has applied to all purchases in the state. “Basically, we get one penny from every $8 spent in this state, no matter what it is spent on,” says Dan Witter, policy coordination chief at the MDC. “The people of this state long ago said, Yes, fish and wildlife are important to us. We want to do our fair share.
“So, as our economy has grown, so has the budget for the agency, allowing us to keep pace with increasing demands. The money is dedicated to the agency, and there is no sunshine clause. That means not only do we have adequate funding, but we also have stable funding. That’s very, very important.”
Last year the MDC budget was $142 million, the third largest in the nation. Significantly, sportsmen’s license fees contributed just $29 million, whereas the Conservation Sales Tax accounted for $88 million. The rest came from federal funds. The tax has made Missouri the easy national leader in per capita spending on fish and wildlife. In fiscal year 2000 that figure was about $26 per resident. Most states receive less than $1 per resident, and 19 states ask nothing of the general population, leaving sportsmen to foot the entire bill.
But those roles have been reversed in Missouri, where sportsmen contribute just 20 percent of their agency’s budget, the smallest such total in the nation. Yet they enjoy what many experts consider the finest all-around programs in America.
The tangible results of 25 years of statewide investment include more than 900,000 acres of public hunting and fishing lands, one of the nation’s top hatchery systems, award-winning outreach and education programs (for hunters, anglers, and nonconsumptive users alike), and one of the highest game-law compliance rates in the nation. And perhaps most important, Missouri has a growing number of licensed hunters and anglers in an era when most states are seeing a trend in the opposite direction.
Arkansas is the latest example of the effectiveness of the Missouri system. For most of its life the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) struggled with one of the nation’s smallest budgets. A Wildlife Management Institute evaluation showed morale was low and top performers were leaving the agency.
That began to change in 1996. After two previous failures, a coalition of conservation groups finally won a state referendum for a Missouri-style tax program. Since 1997, the Arkansas Conservation Sales Tax has taken one-eighth of 1 percent of a statewide sales tax and given 45 percent of that amount to the AGFC. Another 45 percent goes to the Department of Parks and Tourism, 9 percent goes to the Department of Heritage, and 1 percent goes to the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission.
Results were immediate. The agency staff grew from 426 to 534, including 30 new game wardens. Some $12 million has been pledged to begin capital improvements for such critical infrastructure as lake dams, hatcheries, and boat ramps. And last year the AGFC completed the first of five $5 million regional nature centers, state-of-the-art facilities that are the home for nonconsumptive and hunting and fishing outreach programs. The fears of some sportsmen that hunting and fishing would be pushed aside when the agency’s main revenue source became nonconsumptive users have proved false.
“If anything, it means we now have more money to serve the needs of hunters and fishermen,” says Len Pitcock, director of communications for the AGFC. “Our nature centers are a good example. We run our hunter-education, boating-safety, and the Hooked on Fishing Not on Drugs programs from those facilities. None of those would have been possible without that tax. None of it.”
The public likes the changes. A recent poll by Responsive Management showed 89 percent of Arkansas residents give the agency two thumbs up.
“It’s the highest such rating in the nation,” boasts Pitcock.
Tapping a Financial “Gusher”
The logic of Missouri-style funding plans seems obvious, but their spread has been glacial. The two Ozark states-Missouri and Arkansas-remain the only two with such funding. Conservation groups that have studied the problem, such as the Izaak Walton League, say the anti-tax mood that has dominated politics for the last 15 years has sapped the necessary political will for such moves; no politician wants to run for office promising to raise taxes.
But there are signs that the public might be more receptive to such leadership. A poll by Responsive Management in Vermont showed that 85 percent of respondents would support such a tax in that state.
Financially strapped agencies say their only alternative to a sales tax is CARA. By tapping offshore mineral royalties, the bill would create a $3.1 billion package over 15 years to provide more than $350 million for states to manage wildlife conservation, recreation, and education projects.
When the economy was still humming in 2000, CARA enjoyed broad bipartisan support and actually made it through both houses of Congress, only to be picked apart in a joint meeting of House and Senate appropriation committees. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana reintroduced the bill in 2001, but the hope of passage is waning along with the nation’s flagging economy.
And that is terrible news not only for fish and wildlife, administrators say, but for the nation at large. Their organizations, which once only served the needs of hunters and anglers, now are performing vital functions for society at large. These are functions that speak to the general quality of life-not to mention the platforms that support recreation industries pouring billions into state economies.
“One of our principal problems is that the burden for all the environmental work we do has been placed on the shoulders of sportsmen,” says Eric Schwaab, director of fisheries services for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “There are many, many people who benefit from having healthy fish and wildlife populations, but no vehicle for them to pay their fair share.”
Fish and wildlife professionals think the answer lies in two words: Missouri and CARA. But how much longer can they-and we-afford to wait?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional reporting by Scott Bestul, Philip Bourjaily, Gary Garth, Rich Landers, John McCoy, Doug Pike, Lawrence Pyne, and Bob Saile.
by Bob Marshall
America' s fish and wildlife agencies are going broke. The answer, say some experts, is to share the load.
In the summer of 2000 Louisiana sportsmen got back-to-back shocks, the kind that are becoming familiar to hunters and anglers across the country.
First, the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said it would have to double license fees or shut down half of its services.
Then, after the fee hikes were approved, the other shoe dropped: The agency admitted the increases wouldn’t stave off disaster for long.
“This was only a temporary fix; we’ll be back in the same boat in a few years,” says James Patton, the agency’s deputy secretary.
The reason?
“Sportsmen’s license fees just can no longer pay the bills for everyone’s fish and wildlife,” he explains. “There are two real long-term solutions out there. We go with something like Missouri or something like CARA.”
Missouri and CARA. The words are familiar at fish and wildlife agencies across the country because they are the two life rafts that could keep them from drowning in a sea of red ink.
Missouri is shorthand for the Missouri Conservation Tax, a 1977 measure that dedicated one-eighth of 1 percent of a sales tax to the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), making that state the first to tap all of its citizens for the cost of managing fish and wildlife.
CARA is the acronym for the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, a congressional plan that would divert billions of offshore oil royalties to state fish and wildlife agencies.
Sharing the Load
The money is sorely needed.
A yearlong examination by Field & Stream revealed that many of the nation’s fish and wildlife agencies are going broke because sportsmen’s license fees and excise taxes, long the primary support for most agencies, haven’t kept pace with the rising costs of management for more than a decade. As the funding mechanism for the world’s most successful fish and wildlife programs has failed, services have been cut back, resources are being neglected, and the infrastructure that supports public hunting and fishing is crumbling.
In a scramble to stop the bleeding, agencies have resorted to numerous funding schemes, from specialty license plates and lottery proceeds to sky-high nonresident license fees. But agency heads are near-unanimous in their beliefs that there is only one long-term solution: Nonhunters and nonanglers-the overwhelming majority of the population-must contribute on a regular basis.
Currently, nearly 70 percent of all fish and wildlife funding in the nation still depends on the declining pool of sportsmen-even though the businesses managed by those agencies pour billions in tax dollars back into the general economy, benefiting all citizens.
This conclusion troubles Rick Story, vice president of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance. “As the economy tightens, nontraditional sources of funding will be diverted by the government to pay for social programs. You can bet your paycheck on it,” he says. “The best thing that can happen to wildlife in America is that more hunters, anglers, and trappers join our ranks. It’s the only way to ensure that adequate dollars will be there to take care of wildlife and wild places.”
Most experts, however, predict that the number of sportsmen will fall, not grow, in coming years. Right now, “there simply aren’t enough sportsmen to pay all the bills anymore,” says Paul Hansen, executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America. “If you want healthy fish and wildlife for the whole state, then everyone has to contribute, just like they do for roads and schools.”
And that leads to one of two alternatives, managers say: CARA or Missouri. “Missouri is the model most people would choose, because it is sound and dependable,” says Patton. “History has shown that.”
Indeed. Some states have agency-dedicated sales taxes that affect only sporting-related items. There are two drawbacks to those plans, critics say. First, the tax only touches a small proportion of the citizenry. Second, they are just another way of making sportsmen pay more. As the number of sportsmen declines, so does revenue.
The Power of Pennies
That isn’t the case in Missouri. From the start Missouri’s Conservation Sales Tax has applied to all purchases in the state. “Basically, we get one penny from every $8 spent in this state, no matter what it is spent on,” says Dan Witter, policy coordination chief at the MDC. “The people of this state long ago said, Yes, fish and wildlife are important to us. We want to do our fair share.
“So, as our economy has grown, so has the budget for the agency, allowing us to keep pace with increasing demands. The money is dedicated to the agency, and there is no sunshine clause. That means not only do we have adequate funding, but we also have stable funding. That’s very, very important.”
Last year the MDC budget was $142 million, the third largest in the nation. Significantly, sportsmen’s license fees contributed just $29 million, whereas the Conservation Sales Tax accounted for $88 million. The rest came from federal funds. The tax has made Missouri the easy national leader in per capita spending on fish and wildlife. In fiscal year 2000 that figure was about $26 per resident. Most states receive less than $1 per resident, and 19 states ask nothing of the general population, leaving sportsmen to foot the entire bill.
But those roles have been reversed in Missouri, where sportsmen contribute just 20 percent of their agency’s budget, the smallest such total in the nation. Yet they enjoy what many experts consider the finest all-around programs in America.
The tangible results of 25 years of statewide investment include more than 900,000 acres of public hunting and fishing lands, one of the nation’s top hatchery systems, award-winning outreach and education programs (for hunters, anglers, and nonconsumptive users alike), and one of the highest game-law compliance rates in the nation. And perhaps most important, Missouri has a growing number of licensed hunters and anglers in an era when most states are seeing a trend in the opposite direction.
Arkansas is the latest example of the effectiveness of the Missouri system. For most of its life the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) struggled with one of the nation’s smallest budgets. A Wildlife Management Institute evaluation showed morale was low and top performers were leaving the agency.
That began to change in 1996. After two previous failures, a coalition of conservation groups finally won a state referendum for a Missouri-style tax program. Since 1997, the Arkansas Conservation Sales Tax has taken one-eighth of 1 percent of a statewide sales tax and given 45 percent of that amount to the AGFC. Another 45 percent goes to the Department of Parks and Tourism, 9 percent goes to the Department of Heritage, and 1 percent goes to the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission.
Results were immediate. The agency staff grew from 426 to 534, including 30 new game wardens. Some $12 million has been pledged to begin capital improvements for such critical infrastructure as lake dams, hatcheries, and boat ramps. And last year the AGFC completed the first of five $5 million regional nature centers, state-of-the-art facilities that are the home for nonconsumptive and hunting and fishing outreach programs. The fears of some sportsmen that hunting and fishing would be pushed aside when the agency’s main revenue source became nonconsumptive users have proved false.
“If anything, it means we now have more money to serve the needs of hunters and fishermen,” says Len Pitcock, director of communications for the AGFC. “Our nature centers are a good example. We run our hunter-education, boating-safety, and the Hooked on Fishing Not on Drugs programs from those facilities. None of those would have been possible without that tax. None of it.”
The public likes the changes. A recent poll by Responsive Management showed 89 percent of Arkansas residents give the agency two thumbs up.
“It’s the highest such rating in the nation,” boasts Pitcock.
Tapping a Financial “Gusher”
The logic of Missouri-style funding plans seems obvious, but their spread has been glacial. The two Ozark states-Missouri and Arkansas-remain the only two with such funding. Conservation groups that have studied the problem, such as the Izaak Walton League, say the anti-tax mood that has dominated politics for the last 15 years has sapped the necessary political will for such moves; no politician wants to run for office promising to raise taxes.
But there are signs that the public might be more receptive to such leadership. A poll by Responsive Management in Vermont showed that 85 percent of respondents would support such a tax in that state.
Financially strapped agencies say their only alternative to a sales tax is CARA. By tapping offshore mineral royalties, the bill would create a $3.1 billion package over 15 years to provide more than $350 million for states to manage wildlife conservation, recreation, and education projects.
When the economy was still humming in 2000, CARA enjoyed broad bipartisan support and actually made it through both houses of Congress, only to be picked apart in a joint meeting of House and Senate appropriation committees. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana reintroduced the bill in 2001, but the hope of passage is waning along with the nation’s flagging economy.
And that is terrible news not only for fish and wildlife, administrators say, but for the nation at large. Their organizations, which once only served the needs of hunters and anglers, now are performing vital functions for society at large. These are functions that speak to the general quality of life-not to mention the platforms that support recreation industries pouring billions into state economies.
“One of our principal problems is that the burden for all the environmental work we do has been placed on the shoulders of sportsmen,” says Eric Schwaab, director of fisheries services for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “There are many, many people who benefit from having healthy fish and wildlife populations, but no vehicle for them to pay their fair share.”
Fish and wildlife professionals think the answer lies in two words: Missouri and CARA. But how much longer can they-and we-afford to wait?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional reporting by Scott Bestul, Philip Bourjaily, Gary Garth, Rich Landers, John McCoy, Doug Pike, Lawrence Pyne, and Bob Saile.
02-21-2003, 10:45 AM
#5
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Jackson Mo USA
Posts: 323
RE: MISSOURIANS STOP THIS NUT
SPORTSMEN - NEXT TIME YOU VOTE
By: Allen “horntagger” Morris
I have always said “VOTE FOR THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB” either republican or
democrat does not matter - just vote for the best person.
Believe it or not while attending the 27th Annual Wild Turkey Federation Convention in Nashville, TN., the most inspirational speech on why HONOR, HERITAGE, HARVEST and HOPE are the life force of sportsmen and conservationist across this great nation, came from a politician.
During the speech I had no clue whether this person was a republican or democrat and it did not matter. What mattered, is he told the truth about what hunting is all about. I believe as a sportsmen and conservationist I have the obligation not to let one of the most HISTORICAL speeches on the conservation of our wildlife and the heritage of hunting pass in the night.
The following is from a man, a sportsman, a conservationist, and a politician I had never met before the speech and you should not meet until the very end of his speech.
READ CAREFULLY and with the future of hunting in mind. Ask yourself ONE question next time you vote.
Does your Governor, Representative, Congressman, etc. ever stood up for the sportsmen, or wildlife like this man does?
SPEECH AT THE NATIONAL WILD TURKEY FEDERATION CONVENTION
Saturday, February 15th, 2003
(OPENING COMMENTS …)
Though it’s the love of turkey hunting that brings us here to Nashville … if you’re a hunter, it really doesn’t matter what your “game of choice” is.
Regardless of whether the hairs on the back of your neck respond to the snort of a whitetail buck … the chatter of a dozen green-heads coming in to light … or the cackle of an early morning Gobbler shaking off the morning chill … hunters tend to share some pretty important ideals about family, our heritage, our country, and our freedom that builds a powerful bond between us.
You can talk to a die-hard, third-generation Muley hunter in northern Colorado or a bundled-up, blue-nosed city slicker freezing his keaster off in a duck blind in South Arkansas … and I think you’ll find a lot in common.
In my mind, the Hunter’s America has a lot in common with the America our forefathers envisioned for us.
To me, the Hunter’s America is the America that I call home. To me, the Hunter’s America is one of HONOR, HERITAGE, HARVEST and HOPE.
HONOR:
We hear a lot about honor … We see it revered in a documentary about a fallen war hero who gave his life to protect a comrade. We talk about honor as a virtue of the heroic and something that gains acclaim and commendation. And we’re right to glorify those who make such conspicuous sacrifices in the name of honor.
But there’s also another kind of honor. It’s one that’s no less important - but which usually goes unnoticed by most. It’s the honor that we live with in our daily lives - the honor we try to build into our children’s fiber not just to be triggered in times of drama or crisis, but as something they live with as part of their character. We want them to be honorable not just when the world is looking, but just as importantly, when there’s no one looking.
And the life of a hunter is one marked by honor. The very act of going into the great outdoors to play by the rules of Mother Nature honors the Creator in a very real and interactive way.
Who among us hasn’t had a moment in the outdoors when we were alone amidst the wonder of creation and felt compelled to thank God for giving us that day - that hour - that special moment?
You may not have said it out loud, and you don’t have to be an “every-Sunday- church-goer” to feel it, but in the life of every hunter, there comes a moment (hopefully many) when you truly understand the “JOY” of life and you honor your creator by honoring His creation.
And hunting teaches sportsmanship. It teaches our children to play by the rules - the rules of man and the rules of nature. It teaches that life is something given by God and is to be respected, in all its forms. We understand that God put man in a very special role of stewardship over this creation of His … a role that requires us to study his creation and play an active role in maintaining it. We don’t simply kill game to practice the art of killing - for there’s no honor in that. We harvest game to feed our families and to preserve and protect a species.
We teach our children to respect the firearm as a tool of freedom, not as an implement of careless destruction.
A child who learns the doctrines of marksmanship and safe gun-handling from a parent or another caring adult will rarely ever misuse or abuse a firearm to hurt another human being.
To the hunter, the firearm is a means of providing for his family and protecting his way of life.
And in this day and age where that freedom is increasingly being threatened, it’s simply not enough to teach our children to respect firearms - we must actively defend their right to own them when they come of age.
Let us not forget that the 2nd Amendment is the one that makes all other rights possible … and let us teach our children that being active in democracy is the surest and the only way to preserve it.
HERITAGE:
Hunting is also about heritage.
How many of you had the great joy of being taught to hunt by a parent? - I would guess the majority of us learned from a close relative.
The heritage of hunting is one of the most enduring and unchanging traditions of the American way of life.
Though our guns may shoot a little straighter today … and we may wear more expensive clothing with better camouflage and use a GPS to keep from getting lost in the woods … the way we hunt is really not that different from the way Dad taught us. It’s really not that different from the way his Dad taught him.
How many of you own a favorite shotgun or rifle that your Dad passed down to you?
It may not be the best gun in the world … it may not be in the best shape … it may have a split in the stock or some rust spots from too many long wet days in the winter weather … it may need more TLC than any other gun you own and you may not ever even really get to shoot it much. But my guess is - that’s the last gun on Earth you’d ever part with. Why? Because that gun is part of your family’s heritage. It connects you to your Dad or your Grandpa or your Uncle because you know that just as you hold that gun in your hands, they held it in theirs in some far-off field, taking quail on the wing or trudging through knee- deep snow tracking a 10-point buck. That well-worn piece of walnut and steel is a tangible connection to who you are and where you come from.
Can you imagine a Dad passing down as a family heirloom a favorite video game? I can’t. Our heritage is truly precious and I hope we all treat it as such in our own individual ways.
Heritage is about family traditions and a way of life that makes a child feel connected to something larger than himself. And for those of us in this room, Hunting is our heritage.
HARVEST:
Hunting is also about the Harvest … the satisfaction of planning for something, working hard and ultimately acquiring it. It’s about a work ethic upon which success is predicated.
When the National Turkey Federation was founded in 1973, there were an estimated 1.3 million turkeys inhabiting America’s woodlands. Thanks to the combined work of government wildlife agencies and the Turkey Federation’s many volunteers and partners, that number has grown to an estimated 5.6 million.
And the number of turkey hunters has doubled to nearly 3 million.
In my home state of Arkansas, our turkey numbers are at an all-time high - surpassing 155,000 birds. Our 74 Federation chapters have spent more than $1 million to enhance habitat, purchase equipment, acquire land and educate the public about conservation.
You see, a true hunter knows it’s not just about the taking of game - it’s also about providing for game the next season. In almost every species of hunted animal in the United States, it’s the hunters, hunting associations and wildlife agencies that protect and grow the population. The environmentalists and tree-huggers may talk a good game, but it’s the hunting men and women of this country that truly protect the wildlife they hunt. That’s a concept that many refuse to understand, but one that bears repeating … Conservation is deeply embedded in the heart of the hunter. Planning and working for the harvest are essential to who we are.
HOPE:
And lastly, but maybe most importantly, hunting is about HOPE.
Hope is what guides us through life and what guides us through the woods on an early Spring morning. Hope is what we thrive on as human beings and without it, we simply perish.
A hunter never walked into the woods that didn’t hope TODAY was the day that the big one - a gobbler he could tell his grandkids about - was going to come clucking around that old walnut stump by the thicket.
I’ve never cast a spinner bait into the Arkansas River that I didn’t think had at least a chance of pulling out a largemouth. HOPE is the central element of the hunt … without it, we would just stay at home in a warm bed.
But the hope we imbue in our children through hunting is so much more meaningful in terms of their lives. Kids who grow up with HOPE become the entrepreneurs of tomorrow - the visionaries who understand that good things rarely ever come just out of sheer luck - they almost always require patience, preparation and determination. And these are the very qualities we teach them when we take them afield with us.
I believe God has a special place in his heart for the hunters and the fisherman of this world - for no one appreciates His creation more.
God watches these ever hopeful souls rise morning after morning in search of a dream that is as much about His wonder and greatness as it is about mounting a big rack on the wall or making a fan from turkey feathers.
We have HOPE when we’re hunting because we know that God has provided a bountiful world for us. We know that in pursuing its rewards, we’re fulfilling his charge to us to be good stewards and make the most out of the world He’s created.
We HUNT and, in turn, we HOPE because He gives us reason to HOPE. And in our many years spent afield, we do an awful lot of living along the way.
………….MIKE HUCKABEE, GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS
CONCLUSION FROM WRITER
If you answered yes to the question, the heritage of hunting and the preservation and conservation of our wildlife and it’s habitat, will be reflected in your kid’s eyes some day.
If you answered no to the question, you are left with two choices. You can the next time you vote find out who OPENLY supports the heritage of hunting, and the preservation and conservation of our wildlife and it’s habitat, and make a change, only you have that power. If you fall short of that goal you can just turn to you child and eventually your child’s child and tell them SORRY.
ONLY YOU HAVE THAT POWER.
Hope to see you in the woods or on the waters. Horntagger
By: Allen “horntagger” Morris
I have always said “VOTE FOR THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB” either republican or
democrat does not matter - just vote for the best person.
Believe it or not while attending the 27th Annual Wild Turkey Federation Convention in Nashville, TN., the most inspirational speech on why HONOR, HERITAGE, HARVEST and HOPE are the life force of sportsmen and conservationist across this great nation, came from a politician.
During the speech I had no clue whether this person was a republican or democrat and it did not matter. What mattered, is he told the truth about what hunting is all about. I believe as a sportsmen and conservationist I have the obligation not to let one of the most HISTORICAL speeches on the conservation of our wildlife and the heritage of hunting pass in the night.
The following is from a man, a sportsman, a conservationist, and a politician I had never met before the speech and you should not meet until the very end of his speech.
READ CAREFULLY and with the future of hunting in mind. Ask yourself ONE question next time you vote.
Does your Governor, Representative, Congressman, etc. ever stood up for the sportsmen, or wildlife like this man does?
SPEECH AT THE NATIONAL WILD TURKEY FEDERATION CONVENTION
Saturday, February 15th, 2003
(OPENING COMMENTS …)
Though it’s the love of turkey hunting that brings us here to Nashville … if you’re a hunter, it really doesn’t matter what your “game of choice” is.
Regardless of whether the hairs on the back of your neck respond to the snort of a whitetail buck … the chatter of a dozen green-heads coming in to light … or the cackle of an early morning Gobbler shaking off the morning chill … hunters tend to share some pretty important ideals about family, our heritage, our country, and our freedom that builds a powerful bond between us.
You can talk to a die-hard, third-generation Muley hunter in northern Colorado or a bundled-up, blue-nosed city slicker freezing his keaster off in a duck blind in South Arkansas … and I think you’ll find a lot in common.
In my mind, the Hunter’s America has a lot in common with the America our forefathers envisioned for us.
To me, the Hunter’s America is the America that I call home. To me, the Hunter’s America is one of HONOR, HERITAGE, HARVEST and HOPE.
HONOR:
We hear a lot about honor … We see it revered in a documentary about a fallen war hero who gave his life to protect a comrade. We talk about honor as a virtue of the heroic and something that gains acclaim and commendation. And we’re right to glorify those who make such conspicuous sacrifices in the name of honor.
But there’s also another kind of honor. It’s one that’s no less important - but which usually goes unnoticed by most. It’s the honor that we live with in our daily lives - the honor we try to build into our children’s fiber not just to be triggered in times of drama or crisis, but as something they live with as part of their character. We want them to be honorable not just when the world is looking, but just as importantly, when there’s no one looking.
And the life of a hunter is one marked by honor. The very act of going into the great outdoors to play by the rules of Mother Nature honors the Creator in a very real and interactive way.
Who among us hasn’t had a moment in the outdoors when we were alone amidst the wonder of creation and felt compelled to thank God for giving us that day - that hour - that special moment?
You may not have said it out loud, and you don’t have to be an “every-Sunday- church-goer” to feel it, but in the life of every hunter, there comes a moment (hopefully many) when you truly understand the “JOY” of life and you honor your creator by honoring His creation.
And hunting teaches sportsmanship. It teaches our children to play by the rules - the rules of man and the rules of nature. It teaches that life is something given by God and is to be respected, in all its forms. We understand that God put man in a very special role of stewardship over this creation of His … a role that requires us to study his creation and play an active role in maintaining it. We don’t simply kill game to practice the art of killing - for there’s no honor in that. We harvest game to feed our families and to preserve and protect a species.
We teach our children to respect the firearm as a tool of freedom, not as an implement of careless destruction.
A child who learns the doctrines of marksmanship and safe gun-handling from a parent or another caring adult will rarely ever misuse or abuse a firearm to hurt another human being.
To the hunter, the firearm is a means of providing for his family and protecting his way of life.
And in this day and age where that freedom is increasingly being threatened, it’s simply not enough to teach our children to respect firearms - we must actively defend their right to own them when they come of age.
Let us not forget that the 2nd Amendment is the one that makes all other rights possible … and let us teach our children that being active in democracy is the surest and the only way to preserve it.
HERITAGE:
Hunting is also about heritage.
How many of you had the great joy of being taught to hunt by a parent? - I would guess the majority of us learned from a close relative.
The heritage of hunting is one of the most enduring and unchanging traditions of the American way of life.
Though our guns may shoot a little straighter today … and we may wear more expensive clothing with better camouflage and use a GPS to keep from getting lost in the woods … the way we hunt is really not that different from the way Dad taught us. It’s really not that different from the way his Dad taught him.
How many of you own a favorite shotgun or rifle that your Dad passed down to you?
It may not be the best gun in the world … it may not be in the best shape … it may have a split in the stock or some rust spots from too many long wet days in the winter weather … it may need more TLC than any other gun you own and you may not ever even really get to shoot it much. But my guess is - that’s the last gun on Earth you’d ever part with. Why? Because that gun is part of your family’s heritage. It connects you to your Dad or your Grandpa or your Uncle because you know that just as you hold that gun in your hands, they held it in theirs in some far-off field, taking quail on the wing or trudging through knee- deep snow tracking a 10-point buck. That well-worn piece of walnut and steel is a tangible connection to who you are and where you come from.
Can you imagine a Dad passing down as a family heirloom a favorite video game? I can’t. Our heritage is truly precious and I hope we all treat it as such in our own individual ways.
Heritage is about family traditions and a way of life that makes a child feel connected to something larger than himself. And for those of us in this room, Hunting is our heritage.
HARVEST:
Hunting is also about the Harvest … the satisfaction of planning for something, working hard and ultimately acquiring it. It’s about a work ethic upon which success is predicated.
When the National Turkey Federation was founded in 1973, there were an estimated 1.3 million turkeys inhabiting America’s woodlands. Thanks to the combined work of government wildlife agencies and the Turkey Federation’s many volunteers and partners, that number has grown to an estimated 5.6 million.
And the number of turkey hunters has doubled to nearly 3 million.
In my home state of Arkansas, our turkey numbers are at an all-time high - surpassing 155,000 birds. Our 74 Federation chapters have spent more than $1 million to enhance habitat, purchase equipment, acquire land and educate the public about conservation.
You see, a true hunter knows it’s not just about the taking of game - it’s also about providing for game the next season. In almost every species of hunted animal in the United States, it’s the hunters, hunting associations and wildlife agencies that protect and grow the population. The environmentalists and tree-huggers may talk a good game, but it’s the hunting men and women of this country that truly protect the wildlife they hunt. That’s a concept that many refuse to understand, but one that bears repeating … Conservation is deeply embedded in the heart of the hunter. Planning and working for the harvest are essential to who we are.
HOPE:
And lastly, but maybe most importantly, hunting is about HOPE.
Hope is what guides us through life and what guides us through the woods on an early Spring morning. Hope is what we thrive on as human beings and without it, we simply perish.
A hunter never walked into the woods that didn’t hope TODAY was the day that the big one - a gobbler he could tell his grandkids about - was going to come clucking around that old walnut stump by the thicket.
I’ve never cast a spinner bait into the Arkansas River that I didn’t think had at least a chance of pulling out a largemouth. HOPE is the central element of the hunt … without it, we would just stay at home in a warm bed.
But the hope we imbue in our children through hunting is so much more meaningful in terms of their lives. Kids who grow up with HOPE become the entrepreneurs of tomorrow - the visionaries who understand that good things rarely ever come just out of sheer luck - they almost always require patience, preparation and determination. And these are the very qualities we teach them when we take them afield with us.
I believe God has a special place in his heart for the hunters and the fisherman of this world - for no one appreciates His creation more.
God watches these ever hopeful souls rise morning after morning in search of a dream that is as much about His wonder and greatness as it is about mounting a big rack on the wall or making a fan from turkey feathers.
We have HOPE when we’re hunting because we know that God has provided a bountiful world for us. We know that in pursuing its rewards, we’re fulfilling his charge to us to be good stewards and make the most out of the world He’s created.
We HUNT and, in turn, we HOPE because He gives us reason to HOPE. And in our many years spent afield, we do an awful lot of living along the way.
………….MIKE HUCKABEE, GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS
CONCLUSION FROM WRITER
If you answered yes to the question, the heritage of hunting and the preservation and conservation of our wildlife and it’s habitat, will be reflected in your kid’s eyes some day.
If you answered no to the question, you are left with two choices. You can the next time you vote find out who OPENLY supports the heritage of hunting, and the preservation and conservation of our wildlife and it’s habitat, and make a change, only you have that power. If you fall short of that goal you can just turn to you child and eventually your child’s child and tell them SORRY.
ONLY YOU HAVE THAT POWER.
Hope to see you in the woods or on the waters. Horntagger
02-21-2003, 06:51 PM
#8
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: watson missouri USA
Posts: 45
RE: MISSOURIANS STOP THIS NUT
A lot of people are unhappy with the change of attitude in the mdc.
The mdc has all that money but the people have no representation concerning the decisions that are being made. Perhaps a vote on this issue is the best way to let the citizens voice their approval or disapproval. If the mdc is doing an excellant job then there should be no concern about a lack of support and the tax will continue. If not, well perhaps they don' t deserve to spend tax money against the will of the tax payer.
Just a thought
