Evers needs to veto some parts of ‘sporting freedom’ package
There was a splash at the Capitol on Oct. 13 when Ted Nugent, a.k.a. the Motor City Madman, came to Mad City to tout a slew of hunting, fishing and gun rights bills.
Love him or hate him, the “Nuge” creates a buzz at every appearance, which was no doubt part of the goal of Hunter Nation, the Kansas-based group which helped draft the 13 measures in the “sporting freedom” package.
Keith Mark, a Kansas resident and founder of Hunter Nation, was also present. Nugent serves on the organization’s advisory board.
So the spectacle that day in the Badger State’s hall of democracy featured 16 giddy Wisconsin legislators – all Republican – gathered for a media event with an out-of-state rocker and the founder of an out-of-state hunting advocacy group.
Not a single Wisconsin hunting, fishing or conservation group was included.
Nor, to point out the obvious, was even one of the bills introduced by a Democrat.
The proposals included calls to increase stocking of brook trout and ringnecked pheasants, altering the spring wild turkey hunting framework, eliminating the in-person requirement for youth hunter education testing, allowing a sandhill crane hunt and “universal carry” of firearms.
In the days that followed it became clear just how completely Wisconsin organizations had been shut out of the process.
At an Oct. 19 legislative hearing, a procession of Wisconsin’s leading hunting, fishing and conservation groups said they had no prior knowledge of the bills.
“Having not been consulted, we have questions,” said Tony Blattler, chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress.
Other Wisconsin-based organizations were past the point of asking. They were opposed to many of the bills.
You should know about another Madison meeting on the proposed legislation.
This one was held Oct. 25 and was called by Gov. Tony Evers. And it did include Wisconsin-based conservation organizations.
The governor was there, along with representatives of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, National Wild Turkey Federation, Pheasants Forever, Trout Unlimited, Wisconsin Hunter Education Instructors Association and the Wisconsin Conservation Congress.
Gov. Evers gave each group the floor and listened to their positions, said several of those present at the meeting.
The WWF, the state’s largest coalition of hunting, fishing and conservation groups, was against several of the bills, including those to increase brook trout and pheasant stocking and changing the turkey regulations.
The bill to essentially triple the number of pheasants stocked to 200,000 a year, for example, has no funding attached to it and the DNR is not capable of raising or planting that many birds with current staffing and facilities.
With regard to the turkey hunting bill, the NWTF, the state and nation’s largest turkey hunting organization, opposed the proposal to change the spring turkey season format. The NWTF based its position on surveys showing longstanding satisfaction among Wisconsin turkey hunters with the current hunting regulations, as well as concern that adding hunting pressure early in the season could harm the birds’ reproduction.
Trout Unlimited opposed the brook trout stocking proposal (also unfunded), noting the state hatchery system didn’t have space and, to best serve the anglers of Wisconsin, “fisheries management should be based on science, allowed to change over time, and not dictated by meeting an arbitrary annual stocking quota,” the group said.
Representatives of the Wisconsin Hunter Education Instructors Association reiterated their belief that it’s best to require youth hunters to pass an inperson test to obtain their hunter safety certificate, rather than allow a mentored hunt with an untrained person take its place.
And so it went. Each of the Wisconsin groups that had time to formulate a position asked Gov. Evers to veto at least one of the proposals.
As of last week, the Senate and Assembly had passed most of the bills in the “sporting freedom” package.
They now go to Gov. Evers who can sign them into law or veto them.
You won’t find a person in the Wisconsin conservation community who will say all our state’s rules and regulations are perfect.
But the tactics used by Hunter Nation and Republican legislators to introduce these bills, as well as the content of many of them, is a slap in the face to our state’s motto “Forward.”
And if they were primarily a political strategy designed to get Gov. Evers to veto them and then try to cast him as “anti-sportsman” in the fall campaign, that is primed to backfire.
Conservation groups representing the bulk of Wisconsin sportsmen and women know the truth and they have spoken. They’ve asked the governor to veto many of the proposals.
If and when he does, make sure to thank him.