Wildlife agencies face the limits of sportsmen-funded conservation

Declining western state fish and wildlife agency budgets are being further squeezed as a result of not being able to rely on fishing and hunting license fees increases.

In spite of 12 sportsmen and conservation groups like Wyoming Trout Unlimited, Wyoming Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and the Muley Fanatic Foundation of Wyoming asking the state to charge more for hunting and fishing, Wyoming’s legislature had no appetite for putting more expenses on the backs of sportsmen. It would be a politically unpopular move in this time of intense budget scrutiny.

LINK (via: High Country News)

Chasing Butterflies....with Hounds

After six decades as the California Department of Fish and Game, the agency in charge of the state's wild animals has a new name — one that has many hunting and fishing organizations leery.

The agency has been renamed the Department of Fish and Wildlife, thanks to legislation signed by Governor Jerry Brown and it wouldn’t seem to be a big deal. But some sporting groups don’t like the connotation. “Generally, that means a shift toward butterflies, endangered species, and other stuff like that,” said Mike Faw of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance.

LINK (via:Backcountry.com: The Goat)

The new legislation also banned the centuries-old practice of using hounds to hunt bears and bobcats which also has some sporting groups crying the blues.

AWR Responds to Timber Industry Ads: No ‘lawless logging’ in Montana

Recently RY Timber, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Roseburg Forest Products and Sun Mountain Lumber took out the above full-page advertisement in at least six Montana newspapers, including the Helena Independent Record, Missoulian, Kalispell Daily Interlake, Great Falls Tribune, Montana Standard and Bozeman Chronicle.

The timber industry ads called for scrapping the entire Forest Service public appeals process and exempting many timber sales in Montana from judicial review. These are the same timber companies pushing Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, which would require logging on over 156 square miles of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenia National Forest over the next 15 years.

Mike Garrity – Alliance for the Wild Rockies executive director and a 5th generation Montanan – responds to the Ad in the Montana Standard

(via: A New Century of Forest Planning)