On the subject of combining the PFBC and PGC, you bring up some issues that many, mysel included, may not have considered. IMHO, any merging of the two agencies should leave the field personnell pretty much the way it is. The cross training issues you raise make sense. On the other hand, an old friend of mine who has since passed on was a waterways patrolman in Forest County. He assisted the WCO's or DGP's as they were called in those days in his "off season" by acting as a deputy or an assistant to the WCO. He gave me the impression that the two agencies regualrly helped each other out when one was more busy than the other. I would think we could keep the specialization among field officers intact under a combined agency. My case for combining the two is more about headquarters, admin I&E, licensing and exectutive offices. Surely we could identify substantial duplication in those areas and save money while being more effective at the same time. Lets face it, any time a government agency faces the idea of reorganization, combining or streamlining, we are going to see resistance to change because peoples comfort levels get threatened. It happens in any business butis even more likely in the public sector. Both agencies are already downsizing staff by attrition and perhaps both could benefit from a merger. The fact that the two agencies started seperate and that its been that way a long time isn't sufficient reason for either to resist the idea of considering a merger. BTW, I'd rather see PGC and PFBC take the initiative now rather than have a governor mandate a DCNR/PGC/PFBC merger when they start taking general state funds.
All of those possibilities and pretty much every other likely avenue of combining the various duties and even the management of a combined Fish and Game Agency were evaluated by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee. They couldn’t come up with any significant cost saves or even a reduction in management personnel even while exploring it for a cost savings. They did identify many areas where there would be some huge expenses in just merging the two agencies though.
All of that was in what one would have to view as a near perfect transition as well. History has also shown that the larger bureaucracy, and that is what it would be, are nearly always less efficient and even stacked higher on the management end of the scale then on the field level end of the scale. That would just mean more money spent with less public return.
It most certainly could be done but I seriously doubt if combining the two agencies would result in any cost saving. But, perhaps the even bigger question is who pays for the initial costs of merging the two already financially strapped agencies.
I suspect you were talking about Big Joe over in Forest County as being your friend. I used to bump into him often. The Game and Fish Officers have always worked close in their duties and most likely always will even without any official merging of the agencies. I help with fish law enforcement and fish stocking every year the same as the Fish WCO helps with game law enforcement. I have even handled first on scene pollution investigations though I really don’t carry the necessary equipment (there wouldn’t even be room for that in my vehicle with all of the wildlife handling equipment I carry with me) or have the required training to collect the water samples so they would be admissible in court. There really is a lot more to the cross training issues then most people realize.
As for the crossbow issue, I understand why you may not want to get too deep into that one. I will say again, this one is not personal with me as far as the weapon goes. It is personal as far as the BOC's degree of arrogance. I realize that it was a decision made essentially by 4 people but it was quite possibly one of the stupidest moves the BOC could have made at this time. At a time when they need to keep every friend they have, they took a serious dump on a strong friendship. Apparently that friendship wasn't important to those 4 BOC members. I also find it especially appalling that the owner of a sporting goods store would not be asked to abstain from a vote that stands to obviously produce personal finacial gain for him.
The UBP enjoys a small but very politically active core group as its membership. Last I looked, btw, the membership number was substantially larger than the USP. If this had been an issue of science, I would not be saying a word and, I trust, neither would the UBP. But it was not. It was purely a social issue and the BOC may have really shot themselves in the foot on this one. They alienated a friend that has the capability to be at least as big if not a bigger thorn in their side than the USP fanatics. Imagine for a moment, if, as a few here have implied, that the UBP threw their arms in the air and filed a suit of their own or joined forces with USP. I doubt that will happen but who could blame them?
It isn’t that I specifically want to say out of the crossbow discussions it is just that I have no strong feelings on the issue one way or the other. I have been a bow hunter for over forty years and still use a compound bow, or at least would if I had time to hunt during that busy time of the year. I very well might buy a crossbow though now that they are legal, if I can somehow save up that much money.
The real reason I am neutral on the subject has more to do with the rate at which I have already watched the number of crossbows taking over in the hunting field and that rapid increase isn’t something the Game Commission can even control. That control of crossbow inclusion was lost, to the Game Commission, with the legislature changing just one word in the law that allowed disabled hunters to use a crossbow during the archery season.
That law used to say that the Game Commission “MAY” issue a permit to anyone with a Doctor’s report explaining why they couldn’t draw a conventional bow. When someone made application WCOs investigated that person to make a determination if the person truly did qualify. If not, and many didn’t based on the ones that saw still able to play various sports and do arm and upper body physical work on their regular jobs everyday, so we sent in a report that required them to show further cause before being granted the permit. That resulted in the WCO being the bad guy, as usual it seems, the Legislature getting complaints from people that didn’t get their way and finally the Legislature changed the law to read, “The Game Commission “SHALL” issue a permit upon receiving the Doctor’s report. Who couldn’t get a doctor to sign a report saying they can’t draw a bow simply based on what ever the person told them regardless of what a physical exam indicated?
Since that time about 63,000 people have received the crossbow permit and there simply isn’t anyway the Game Commission can slow that ever increasing trend. If you take all of the archery licenses sold during the 2007/2008 license year that would mean that about 24% of our archery hunters can already use a crossbow statewide. Then factor in that anyone in one of the Special Regulations units has been allowed to use a crossbow in their hunting area for years and it becomes obvious that the number of crossbows being used for hunting was a run away number that the Game Commission, or the UBP allies, really had no control over anyway. One word being changed by the State Legislature changed the abilty of the Game Commission to prevent an ever increasing number of crossbow huntersin the archery season, so perhaps the problem really started with waht some peopleare saying they want even more of.
Another factor that I think the Commissioners had to look at was that even though some of the best allies the Commission has ever had didn’t want the crossbow included there were still many others that were equally animate that they did want crossbows included in the archery season. That alone might not be a good reason for the Commission vote going the direction it did but when you combine that with real mission of the Commission being to provide as many hunting opportunities as possible without adversely affecting the resource I do believe they had to look at the possibility that the use of crossbows might allow more people an opportunity to spend more time hunting then they presently are. Isn’t that a good thing? Perhaps not if you are only looking at from the perspective of putting more hunters into a state of completion for the deer, but should that be something that the Commissioners even think about or should they be more focused on the long term future of hunting in general? That is a difficult question to answer though isn’t it? So, when I sit down and think about I really don’t see it as a slap in the face as much as I see it as trying to weight out both the short term and long affects of the decision and then making a judgment call with their vote. It is one of those dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t decisions that frequently challenge major controversial issues, you just can’t win and have to do what seems best based on all of the facts you have. If then it might have been just as easy, and maybe as wise, to just flip a coin and go with what it suggested.
As for the crossbow vote being a conflict of interest for the Commissioner with the sporting good business; it would perhaps seem that way but I don’t think I see the conflict though when I look at more of the facts of his situation. His business is deep in the heart of one of the areas where anyone has been able to use a crossbow during the archery season for a number of years. I doubt he is going to see much of an increase in his business due to his statewide inclusion of crossbows. In fact it may actually boost the business of his completion and hurt him in the really big picture.
I can say that I have some questions of the logic of not allowing the magnification of scopes though in view of the fact that so many people (about 63,000 hunters) already have the scopes and used them without incident for all these years. That was probably more of a compromise gift to the UBP allies that just kind of didn’t result in enough comprise to have any value for the cost of it. I suspect it one of those “paying too much for your whistle” decisions.
Could the need for adjustments be needed in the future for management reason? I suspect that is a possibility depending on how many new hunters, people that weren’t archery hunters before, now join the ranks. No one knows the answer to that question, but we will find out now that they are legal. If there are biological or wildlife management problems that arise they can be most likely be solved, though I am sure many will argue that point too. Time will tell.
All that being said, I personally would still rather pay the whole bill as a hunter. I strongly fear that once we take general funds, the PETA types will demand a voice. Perhaps even seek a seat on the BOC and once we've taken money from the general public, that may not be preventable. The only way I'd be comfortable with bringing in outside money is if it were designated specifically and exclusively for nongame programs. Maybe thats possible maybe not. But it's one way to keep making the case for hunting issues to be decided by those who truly have hunting, as well as the resources, best interests at heart.
I agree that it would be preferable to have hunters paying the full wildlife management bill and I argued for that very thign for a long time. But, the really is that it either already has, oris very rapidly approaching the point when hunters alone simply can’t afford to pay all of the costs of a quality wildlife management program. It costs more money all the times just to maintain the same programs even without new programs and research. At what point do we end up pricing hunters out of hunting.
Yet, it would be irresponsible of both the hunters and wildlife management professionals to allow our resources to become degraded out of either pride of the fear of new and more effective funding methods. At least in my opinion itwould be.
As for the voice of PETA or other non-hunting and anti-hunting groups I will say that they already have a strong voice in wildlife management. If nothing else they get a voice within the Legislature and anyone that studies the situation can surely see how much influence the State Legislature already has in the direction of wildlife management, sad as it is. That is only getting worse and to be honest with you I think working from a portion of a dedicated percentage of the sales tax (the direction I presently would prefer)would result in less outside influence then we have today instead of the more many hunters fear.
As for the PETA types looking for and even demanding a position on the BOC that is already occurring because of the division of the hunters ranks and the USP law suit. I will start a new topic to show what they are presently up to. Please, all hunters that really care, go read it.
R.S. Bodenhorn