Recent changes moving landowner permits from 5 acres to 80 is punishinglandowners and attempts at a socialistic form of governing conservation. You reward the wealthy with 80+ acres and punish small less fortunatelandowners. Less animals will be harvested and more landowners like myself will now not permit anyone else to hunt my land until you take that away from me too! I spent alot of money to buy land for one reason was thebenifits it gave me. What else do you have in the works to screwlandowners!


Thank you for taking the time to express your views on this matter.
The new minimum acreage for no-cost deer and turkey permits is just one part of more than a year-long effort to take a comprehensive look at our whole permit system. In the past, our funding grew each year, but today it is not keeping pace with the cost of doing business. Sales tax revenues are expected to drop or remain flat as the economy slows. The majority of hunters and anglers are baby boomers and, as those people are aging and reducing their outdoor recreation, permit sales revenue are decreasing. With decreasing permit sales, Missouri also receives less federal aid that is tied to number of permits sold. A portion of the permit changes were designed to allow us to continue to receive our share of the federal aid reimbursement.
While no one likes to pay higher prices for anything, we have to look at maintaining the revenue needed to continue to provide good resource management. Many different options were considered in the permit restructuring. We hope you'll understand that this wasn't done to get extra funding—it was a choice to just keep an even, solid funding base in light of declining hunter numbers and increasingly small land ownerships so we can maintain services at the level people expect. I hope this helps explain why these changes were needed.
Additional information on the upcoming changes and the reasons behind them can be found at:
http://www.mdc.mo.gov/regs/permitfaq.htm
Changes to permit pricing and associated issues, as approved by the Conservation Commission, were filed with the Missouri Secretary of State on October 10, 2008. These changes will be published in the November 17 edition of the Missouri Register, at which time a 30-day public comment period commences. After the 30-day public comment period, all comments will be compiled and sent to the Conservation Commission for their information and consideration. At such time, the Conservation Commission may decide to rescind, alter or continue with changes as previously approved.
We will include your e-mail comments with others that are received during the official public comment period.