Pa. looking for more ways to pay for wildlife services
Share with others:
Some people look out the window and see a natural world that could take care of itself if we would just leave it alone.
But those more experienced in the outdoors and employees of the two agencies that manage the state's wildlife see something else: A man-made landscape of unnatural second growth teeming with thousands of species of plants and animals living in a constantly changing artificial environment.
In short, they see the need for constant and costly stewardship of Pennsylvania's wildlife resources. But it's become increasingly hard to pay for it.
Officials at the state's separate Game Commission and Fish and Boat Commission said they're struggling to find alternative funding necessary to maintain services. With a deficit expected in 2011, Fish and Boat commissioners are considering raising fees for fishing licenses.
Unlike other state agencies, the wildlife management commissions get no money from Pennsylvania's general fund, relying since their founding about 100 years ago on revenue raised from hunters and anglers. With no contribution from the general public and a new emphasis on maintaining habitats for nongame species, agency officials said they're strained to the breaking point.
A 2006 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey found that while participation in traditional hunting and fishing was waning, wildlife watching had become the fastest growing outdoors pastime, both nationally and in Pennsylvania.
But plans for expanding the state agencies' existing management of nongame species -- including goals detailed in the Game Commission's newly released five-year plan -- are not financially sustainable under the state's current funding process.
"Wildlife watchers are not funding what they're doing directly," said Jim Bonner, executive director of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania. "And some of them don't even know it."
Doug Austin, executive director of the Fish and Boat Commission, said even many hunters and anglers don't know where their license fees are going.
First Published January 17, 2010 12:00 am
