I’m seeing a trend I don’t like in that more and more wildlife management decisions are being made by state legislators instead of the fish and game department proper. Or perhaps maybe some states have about antis working in fish and game. Any other of you guys see this in your state? My major concern is that wildlife management is being decided by ignorant elected officials or the generally ignorant public statewide.

on paper,or in reality??

For decades MO has had an excellent Dept of Cons. Lately our game commission has been appointees from the city. They usually have to stretch their bio to some how connect them to the outdoors. I am all for getting people outdoors but the feel the last few years is that our Dept. of CONSERVATION is less focused on wildlife/fish. We probably should have named ours Game and Fish, Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife, etc. years ago to make it harder to divert the focus of the department. Slow process here but it is happening.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission runs hunting in the state. They are funded primarily through the sale of hunting and trapping licenses. They do not receive an allocation from the state's general fund like other state agencies.

Even so, it is my opinion that our state legislature has been trying to financially strangle the agency for twenty years now. The legislature has the final say on whether or not the PGC can raise the cost of a hunting and trapping license. Something the legislature has not approved for nineteen years!

I believe the state would love to see the PGC gone. The prize is the 1.2 million acres of State Game Lands acquired by the PGC over the years which are currently dedicated to providing hunters and trappers a place to participate in their sport.

The state would love to turn that land over to the DCNR and turn it all into walking/biking/horseback trails. What other state agency does anyone know about that has survived nineteen years without a funding increase?

and it's a pretty 1.2 million acres.

It is. And it would be a shame to have to see a bunch of spandex-wearing hipsters in mountain bike gangs cruising all over them throughout the year.

Some say clowns in AR.

How is it that on one hand people want to rid the government of unelected regulators/rule makers who do not answer to the will of the people but on this isssue we are rooting to detach control of a function of government from elected creeps and give it more and more to career bureaucrat creeps?

I think most all of the Game Commissions operate under the authority granted by the state legislatures so there will be various degrees of control by the legislatures. And funding is one of the key items that can be used to make control whatever they want it to be. In NC, the Commission is 19 political appointees, appointed by the governor, the head of the senate and the head of the house of representatives. And funding has been changed dramatically in the last 10-15 years. The funding used to be determined by a formula based on tax revenue so with a growing economy, funding would increase almost every year. And the license fee structure could only be changed by the legislature, which in our case meant they rarely were adjusted. License fees are also set by the legislature but they have finally set up a formula that allow the commission to make adjustments based on a formula. But the license fee structure is no where near a level where it will sustain commission operations.

In the last few years, the politicians saw the opportunity to use the tax revenue formula based money for other things and have done away with that formula. The commission still gets the license fees but the funding over that has to be authorized by the General Assembly in the state budget every year now. This process has resulted in a significant reduction in funding for wildlife management.

At the same time, there is more pressure to open up game lands to more mixed use....bike trails, equine trails etc.....

So it all boils down to politics.

There’s a board of directors here with like 10 people for Texas parks and wildlife that end up making the final decisions on all seasons, bag limits and the laws and stuff for Texas. My uncle is actually on that board, I don’t talk to them much though but he’s been on that board for like 10 years. 10 people make the laws and regulations for 30 million. There’s always influence from different organizations for season changes and limits and what not, especially with the fish industry. The cca has a lot of push and pull on there decisions as well, it’s all political bull to me. Those guys aren’t out there in the woods and the fields of the everyday sportsman, they hunt and fish on different continents or on their own huge high fence places. A lot of wealth between those board members

It is not in wildlife, nor people's best interest to release control to a sole entity. You may believe that the bureaucracy of wildlife control will be filled with altruistic managers who will use science to benefit the animals and under their control . I can tell you from historical fact that bureaucracy does not attract those types.
Science and management of anything is not free of politics. I am not saying that legislative control is perfect, it is far from it. I am saying it is best when citizens have control of the reigns in order to have a mechanism to mitigate unintended consequences brought forth by career bureaucrats who let their personal politics override their management duties.

Appointed Commissioners here we have a anti-trapper we are dealing with now a total idiot, last year when our bird numbers were scary low his idea was to regulate trapping and did nothing to cut back on the pheasant season. It seems his goal it to run us off of public lands in favor of making it exclusive to bird hunters. I say idiot because some of that land does not hold pheasants but he lacks the ability to see what trappers do to protect the game in SD.

It appears it's who you know and not what you know that gets you appointed to the commission we are lucky we have another commissioner that believes that public lands belong to everyone not just the elite!


My goal is to work on getting rid of this liberal fool once the elections are over in Nov. or at least expose him for what he is.

In my state... Houndsmen.

Mike

Keep it coming please. I’m hearing some of the very same concerns I’m seeing.

It is my understanding that the last 2 or 3 years in Ohio have been a disaster in wildlife management by politicians.

The head of the DNR here is appointed by the executive branch. There is a Natural Resource Board which is also appointed by the executive branch. The Secretary of the DNR's office appointed or hires the leaders of each of the divisions such as wildlife, fisheries, enforcement etc.

Bryce

All state wildlife departments ( DNR, Fish & Wildlife, Game Dept, etc) are ultimately persuaded by voters; directly or indirectly.

Unfortunately, the majority of US voters are not in favor of hunting & trapping anymore and if it were put on national ballot next election; both would cease to exsist in this country. The boomer generation that has remained stronghold of both is slowly dying off or just giving up the fight. Uninformed youth of today view hunting & trapping as archaic evils that no longer have a place in modern civilization. Even undecideds (fence sitters) will vote against hunting & trapping when confronted publicly.

Therefore, wildlife departments are catering to public (voter) movement away from wildlife harvest toward pure wildlife conservation...ignoring the fact that they run parallel. Greenies and animal welfare activist are currently designing legislation that will be future mandate for such departments. State wildlife departments are responding by recruiting urban and/or out-of-state acedemics to achieve this new trend of management administration. Too many are non-hunters/trappers.

Wildlife Biologist

Idiots !!!!!!!!!!!

Just look at how Cali is ruining the management efforts there as critters are rated on a cuteness scale! LOL Biologist get hired for what they have learned then the politicians get in the way to control the resource into the ground.

For many years California Fish and Game was very well run but for thirty years it has been on a slide. License revenue gets mixed in with the general fund and more of the employees are non or anti hunters who know little about game or hunting.

A real tragedy.

It would take 4 pages to explain how it works in France, but for me in my village of 215 people it works OK.

Pete