Bat houses and smocks

Brought to you by ticket fines

An Arkansan doesn’t have to go far into a deer camp or sit around a duck lodge for very long before he starts hearing about how much power the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wields in this state. It’s almost tradition to complain about Game and Fish. And, like any good fishing story, it’s not uncommon for the teller of the tale to stretch the truth. (A game warden was hiding behind my deer stand when I got there this morning!)

Stories about people having guns and four-wheelers confiscated are rare. But tickets for violating laws and rules aren’t. That’s why most people who hunt have hunting licenses and obey other rules like shooting times, bag limits and shot limits.

Similar limits are placed on those fishing Arkansas’ trout, bass, catfish and more. Anglers who get caught breaking the rules are, at a minimum, fined.

As angry as that may make a guy who has to pay the fine, there’s a silver lining.

(Another reason to strangely admire those who take the job of game warden: Every person who gets a ticket is armed to the teeth. We wouldn’t take the gig.)

But the next time the subject comes up at duck camp, remind your buddies: AGFC does not rely on fines to fund facilities or operating expenses. That money is instead packaged as educational grants within the county the fine was levied.

The other day, the paper said AGFC provided K-12 schools with 240 grants totaling $537,209. That’s a lot of fine money paid by Arkansas hunters. But it all goes to good causes:

Among those funded were DeWitt Elementary in Arkansas County ($6,563) to purchase items for its pollinator garden (birdhouses, bee houses, hummingbird feeders, bird food, and bat houses of all things). Also, the money went for books, paint and colored pencils.

Lakeside Middle School in Chicot County will get $15,737.87 to buy equipment such as poles, bait, coolers, tables, chairs, tents and water.

And Cedarville Elementary in Crawford County received $4,456.38 to buy items for an outdoor classroom including study stumps, a chalkboard, art panels, science learning kits, a rolling cart, paint, smocks, play sand, various learning kits, and more bat houses.

There are 237 more examples of these types of awards handed out around the state.

“The best way to prevent future violations is to instill a love of the resource in our future hunters, anglers and outdoors enthusiasts and teach them why it’s so important to follow the regulations,” agency Director Austin Booth said in announcing the grants. “Every hunter is faced with the decision to follow the rules or cheat the system every time they put on a pair of waders or hunter-orange vest. The things they learn today through increased conservation education programs could be the very thing that molds them into the ethical sportsmen and sportswomen our wildlife resources deserve.”

Other uses of the funding include creation and maintenance of archery, fishing and competitive shooting sports programs and improvement of education materials, indoor and outdoor habitats, lake supplies, and field trips to AGFC nature and education centers.

And probably more bat houses.

Some of us give Game and Fish the benefit of the doubt when those traditional complaints come up at camp in the cold months. With good reason.

Some of us are old enough to remember when deer were scarce in Arkansas. You could hunt a whole season and see nary a one. Now they’re everywhere.

Some of us are old enough to remember when seeing a turkey was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now turkey hunters have plenty of opportunities to put a tom in the oven.

Some of us are old enough to remember when elk were re-introduced to Arkansas, and have admired watching the herds grow over the years.

Some of us believe that Game and Fish, given time, will bring back the quail population and pare down the feral pig population. (Two things that might be linked.) And we believe that kind of thing because of learned experience—that is, watching this state agency have so much success elsewhere.

And if a body doesn’t want to help pay for bat houses, then he ought to just follow the rules of the woods.