Legislators target boaters, popular deer program
The 10,000 or so Texas landowners taking advantage of the state’s Managed Lands Deer Permit program would face paying a fee to help cover the labor-intense program’s costs, use of emergency engine cutoff switches would be mandatory on boats equipped with the safety device, military veterans and many law enforcement officers would be exempt from hunter education requirements, and volunteer firefighters would get free hunting and fishing licenses under terms of bills recently filed by Texas legislators.
Those proposals are some of the latest of more than three dozen pieces of legislation potentially affecting outdoor recreation introduced during the Texas Legislature’s current biennial session. Legislators have until March 10 to file bills for consideration during the 140-day session that ends May 29. Recovering some cost
A bill by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, would give Texas Parks and Wildlife Department the authority to recover some of the considerable and increasing costs the agency’s wildlife division incurs through its Managed Lands Deer Permit program.
The MLDP program encourages private landowners to put their properties under TPWD-approved wildlife management and deer herd management plans. Landowners and hunters on tracts enrolled in the MLDP program are rewarded with greater flexibility in harvesting deer on those tracts through longer season lengths (as much as five months) and other incentives.
Interest in the program has exploded. Currently, about 10,000 Texas landowners control about 30 million acres on which tens of thousands of Texas hunters pursue deer participate in the MLDP program.
That popularity has overwhelmed the resources of TPWD wildlife division staff charged with administering the program — a process that has biologists conducting on-site visits to properties to survey habitat and wildlife populations, developing and approving wildlife management plans, setting deer harvest recommendations, issuing program permits and monitoring compliance. The program is available at no cost to the participants.
That would change under Perry’s Senate Bill 722. The bill would authorize TPWD to establish fees for participation in the MLDP program, with money generated going to the agency account that funds wildlife staff and program. The bill leaves setting the amount of those fees to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Safety comes first
Engaging emergency engine cutoffs switches when a boat’s engine is running would become mandatory for almost all boats under a bill filed last week. House Bill 1988, introduced by state Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, would make it a violation of the Texas Water Safety Act to operate a boat less than 26 feet long and powered by an engine equipped with an emergency engine cutoff switch without engaging that safety device.
Boat-engine emergency cutoff switches, commonly called “kill switches,” are usually short tethers with one end connected to a switch in the boat’s electric system and the other designed to be attached, via a clip, to the boat operator’s wrist, belt or life jacket. If the person attached to the kill switch is thrown away from the boat’s console or motor tiller, the tether disengages from the switch, killing the engine.
In instances where a boat operator is thrown from the vessel as a result of striking an object, mechanical failure of steering system or other accident, the kill switch stops the engine.
Without such an emergency cutoff, a person thrown from a boat can be seriously, sometimes fatally, injured when struck by the engine’s spinning propeller. Often, those injuries occur when propeller torque from the still-running boat causes the unattended vessel to run in a circle, repeatedly returning to where ejected operator or passengers float helplessly in the water.
Current Texas law requires only those persons operating a personal watercraft to engage the vessel’s emergency cutoff switch when the engine is running. Surveys indicate fewer than half, and perhaps as few as 10 percent, of other boaters on Texas public waters engage their vessel’s kill switch when operating their vessels. Several states, including Louisiana, recently passed laws increasing the number of boaters required to engage/attach their emergency engine cutoff switches. Registration process eyed
In another proposed change to Texas boating laws, boaters who use small vessels propelled by electric trolling motors would be exempt from having to register those boats, affix state-issued numbers to the vessel and pay a biennial boat registration fee.
Texas law currently requires all boats powered by an engine or motor of any sort and used on public waters to pay a fee to register the boat with the state, which then issues a certificate of number for that vessel. Those numbers — commonly called “TX” numbers — must be affixed to the boat, and the boat owner pays a fee, based on the length of the vessel, for a two-year renewal of that registration. SB 708 by state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, would change that by exempting boats less than 14 feet in length and powered by an electric trolling motor from the numbering requirement.
A bill by state Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-League City, would exempt hundreds of thousands of Texans with current or past military experience and many serving as peace officers from the requirement if they take and pass a hunter education course before legally hunting in the state.
Currently, Texas requires anyone hunting in the state and born on or after Sept. 2, 1971 to complete a state-approved Hunter Education Course and carry certification of course completion, valid for life, while afield. The course, taught by statecertified volunteers, is offered in three versions, including an online-only course, and is designed to instruct students in wildlife conservation, firearms/hunting/outdoor safety, hunting laws and hunter responsibilities.
Bonnen’s HB 2009 would exempt from hunter education requirements all active duty military personnel, all honorably discharged U.S. military veterans, any person who is on active duty or previously has served as a member of the Texas Army National Guard, the Texas Air National Guard or the Texas State Guard. It also would extend the exemption to some peace officers — officers and reserve officers in sheriff and constable departments, officers in city police departments and Department of Public Safety officers.
The hunter education exemption would apply to a large number of the 1.6 million military veterans, 173,000 active-duty military and 77,000 licensed peace officers in Texas.
Volunteer firefighters who hunt or fish in Texas would be the beneficiaries of a bill by state Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin. Ashby’s HB 2013 would instruct the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to waive the fee charged for a resident hunting license, resident fishing license or resident combination hunting/fishing license for qualifying volunteer firefighters.
Under terms of the legislation, the license fees would be waived for volunteer firefighters who have at least one year of continuous service, actively engage in firefighting activities and don’t receive more than $5,000 a year in compensation for that service. Texas has about 30,000 volunteer firefighters, with most of them in rural areas.
None of the abovementioned bills has been scheduled for a committee hearing in their respective chambers — the first hurdle the proposals must clear in the legislative process.