General should keep politics out of PGC review
The auditor
Auditor General Eugene DePasquale recently announced a planned performance audit of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. That’s fine. Anyone committed to good government will welcome it; we the people own our government, and we deserve to know how our tax and license money is spent. It is how we hold elected officials accountable.
However, The Associated Press reports that Mr. DePasquale’s audit will also delve into how Pennsylvania’s whitetail deer population is scientifically managed, and into PGC efforts to preserve and expand ruffed grouse habitat. Separately, the auditor general announced his intention to use his position to promote gun control, though it has as much to do with his job as does wildlife biology. Which is zero.
Settled by poor people from Europe, America and Canada understandably took different approaches to both self-governance and wildlife management. Even to this day, all European wildlife is privately owned, which concentrates game animals in the hands of the wealthy few. Political elites are most of Europe’s hunters and gun owners. On the other hand, the North American wildlife management model completely departed from that, and democratized access to wildlife. Our model is essentially Wildlife for Everyone. One of the core tenets of our wildlife model is that the best science available is used, because science is above politics and money. Our Second Amendment guarantees firearm ownership to all citizens, regardless of birth or wealth.
But by going beyond a simple financial audit of a government agency, and meddling in policy subjects (guns, deer, grouse, land management, conservation, biology) he is neither qualified nor elected to investigate, Mr. DePasquale is crossing a bright red line in our representative form of government. Mr. DePasquale is not a biologist; he is just another undistinguished lawyer elected to political office, a common and unfortunate fact of life in America. He is injecting both politics and money into his “audit” of the PGC, and concerned sportsmen should beware the politicized, unprofessional results that are sure to result. CHET KRCIL
Claysville