Conservation programs receive funds
HORICON - The ceremonial check was about the size of a Megabucks billboard you see along a highway.
The number on it was equally big: $34,966,603, payable to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Someone in the audience quipped that even in Washington, D.C., that amount of money will get someone’s attention.
Although the check was a prop, what it represented was as real and vital to Wisconsin conservation programs as the waterfowl resting on the vast wetland just outside Horicon Marsh Education and Visitor Center.
Federal officials on Tuesday announced the 2018 apportionments from the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration acts.
No funny money, these funds, derived from excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, fishing, boating and archery equipment, are collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
then redistributed to the states.
Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Department of Interior, took part in a presentation Tuesday in Horicon to highlight the annual distributions.
“American sportsmen and women are some of our best conservationists and they contribute billions of dollars toward wildlife conservation and sportsmen access every year through the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson Acts,” Zinke said.
The appearance of Zinke, in Wisconsin on a trip that included a visit to the Oneida Indian reservation to discuss opioid addiction and treatment, helped underscore the importance of a pair of programs every citizen — and perhaps especially non-sportsmen — should know about.
That’s both because the funding is so significant for state agencies and because projects paid for through the programs produce positive dividends far beyond the sporting community.
In fact, if you don’t hunt, fish, shoot or boat, you don’t pay a penny into the funds and still enjoy the fruits.
What kind of benefits? Restoration of native wildlife species, for one, and habitat improvement projects that result in cleaner water and control of invasive plants, for another.
The lists of achievements made possible through the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Acts would fill several books. And they keep growing.
The Acts have arguably become along with the Federal Duck Stamp the most valuable programs in the history of American natural resource management.
Even during the Great Depression, sportsmen, members of Congress and business leaders got together and helped a law get passed that imposed a self-tax on equipment used in hunting and the shooting sports. The funds raised could only be used for wildlife restoration activities.
The wildlife funds are collected through excise taxes on the sale of shotguns and rifles (11%), ammunition (11%), archery equipment (11%) and handguns (10%).
The wildlife restoration program, commonly called Pittman-Robertson, has been in place since 1937. The Dingell-Johnson sport fish restoration program has been active since 1950. It raises funds from a 10% excise tax on fishing rods, reels and lures as well as a motorboat fuel tax.
The Department of Natural Resources receives the funding in Wisconsin. State agencies are required to apply for the money and to provide 25% matching funds, normally derived from hunting and fishing license revenue.
State shares are determined by formulas that include geographical size and sales of hunting and fishing licenses.
The revenue is made available to all 50 states and five U.S. protectorates
Since the programs started, they have distributed more than $20 billion to assist conservation and recreation throughout the nation.
For 2018, the Wildlife Restoration fund has $797 million available for allocation to the states, including $23.5 million to Wisconsin.
The Sport Fish fund has $352 million available to states this year, including $11.4 million to Wisconsin.
The total of $34.9 million from these funds is second highest on record for the Badger State ($36.5 million in 2015).
The high level of funding has become a lifeline to the Wisconsin DNR, which has seen budget cuts.
Further, the Legislature has not approved a hunting or fishing license fee increase since 2005, and some have been static since the 1990s.
This despite strong and consistent calls to increase license fees from the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, Wisconsin Waterfowl Association and other conservation organizations.
The federal excise tax funding, substantial as it is, has not been able to prevent DNR cuts in staffing and programs.
As we contemplate the great good that continues to be done by PittmanRobertson (now 81 years young) and Dingell-Johnson (68), the bigger picture of conservation funding invites two questions: When will the Wisconsin Legislature listen to sportsmen and increase license fees? And on the federal level, what’s next?
If any future move proves to be even fractionally as successful as the federal Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration programs, those who love wild things will have reason to rejoice.