DNR gave permits to politically connected hunters By JOHN O'CONNOR | Wednesday, April 11, 2007

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Politicians, judges and professional athletes were given Illinois hunting permits without having to take their chances in a lottery alongside other hunters, according to an audit released Tuesday.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources gave out "excessive" permits through an administrative process that is not advertised to the public, giving preferential treatment to those who know about it, Auditor General William Holland found.

His review of some of the 1,250 administrative permits issued from 2004 to 2006 showed they went to professional athletes, judges, politicians and donors to the state's not-for-profit Conservation Foundation.

Names of those who got the permits were not included in the audit and DNR spokesman Chris McCloud said he did not have information on recipients' names.

"DNR feels it is well within its rights to issue permits in this manner," McCloud said in an e-mailed statement.

Deer- and turkey-hunting permits typically are issued to people chosen in a random, computerized lottery.

Permits must be rationed to prevent over-hunting of some game. They should be distributed fairly, said Jeff Davis, national spokesman for Whitetails Unlimited, a hunters group based in Sturgeon Bay, Wis.

"If there are a limited number of permits, the average hunter ought to have just as good a shot at getting those as anyone else," Davis said.

DNR biologists develop game-harvest quotas for each part of the state, based on the number of animals they count and the number of hunters they expect in the field.

Holland said handing out too many additional permits could upset that balance. But McCloud countered that each additional permit helps the agency control the state's deer population. He said a majority of special permits went to people who missed the application deadline for the lottery.

The state issued 948,000 deer permits in 2004 and 2005 combined, and 143,000 spring turkey-hunt permits in 2005 and 2006, a Holland spokesman said. McCloud put the number at 1.3 million for both categories, noting that special permits amounted to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of that total.

The audit noted that state law allows the DNR director to grant special permits for free to out-of-state guests, foreign dignitaries, outdoors writers or other visitors.

Holland found the department had failed to compile adequate documentation on 92 percent of the special permits his office examined. He also found the requester's signature was missing from 43 percent of the permits _ typically because the agency filled it out for the hunter _ and that fees were not charged in one-fifth of cases reviewed.

The agency agreed documentation of the permits needs to be improved.

In other examples Holland cited, five representatives of an ammunition company were given three permits each and the general manager of a hunting lodge got 20 permits.

In another case, 27 youth permits were issued to hunters in Gallatin County at the request of a landowner who lets people hunt on his property for a fee, even though DNR had not approved the county for youth hunting and the public couldn't apply for them.

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On the Net

Office of the Auditor General: http://www.auditor.illinois.gov/

A service of the Associated Press(AP)
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