04-13-2011, 05:29 AM
Quote:Here in Ct. they doubled our fishing licenses and all other licenses under $100. This was back in 1010. We as citizens and state sportsman associations emailed and lobbied the state reps about making the sportsmen pay for state services that have decreased in the past years. Hopefully your in state organizations will pick up the ball. They gave us a credit this year and lowered the costs of all licenses. Good Luck.
That's a really inspiring story.
I was flipping through some Colorado Outdoors magazines today, published by the dow. In 1981 it seems that they were proposing increases in licenses that certainly would have prompted similar actions. Almost all licenses would have doubled, some quadrupled and the second rod stamp would have gone from three to fifteen dollars, the same price as the new proposed annual fishing license!
It states in a few paragraphs the reasons why the increases were proposed, inflation was mentioned several times, increased population, gas prices and over development of wildlife habitat. It goes on to say that most of their funds are supplied by the non-residents and would have increased those licenses too. This was all dreamed up by their "task force".
Here's a short list.
Resident fishing-from $7.50 to $15
Non-resident fishing from $25 to $40
Resident bear from $10 to $25
Non-resident bear from $50 to $220
Resident trapping from $5 to $15
Non-Resident trapping from $50 to $200
I'm not sure which, if any, of these fee's were approved through the legislature. Do any of you remember what you were paying in 1982?
Anyway, the numbers seem strange and the reasons don't exactly follow logically. If gas was too much for sportsman to come to Colorado and they increased fee's what do you think the outcome would be? They say a larger population is a reason for the increases and go on to contradict themselves by saying that there would be more revenue from more licenses, but that inflation is increasing faster than the number of new sportsman. They also mentioned the fact that they have a healthy reserve of funds, but prospects of inflation would drain the reserve by 1985, and a large reserve is needed in case of emergencies.
The Divisions Of Wildlife are probably extremely far down the list of agencies that need reform and I don't think there's any corruption going. Its just sometimes it feels like it has the potential of becoming a bloated entity that becomes power crazed and starts playing god, claiming the the forests will vanish and birds will fall from the sky without them (is that still going on?).
What WOULD happen without a DOW? Sometimes I think boy scouts do more good.
It seems like animals and tree's took pretty good care of themselves before and don't care about oil prices and inflation. Lets say licenses were issued by the county, cost exactly reflecting the price of management. Outside county licenses would cost the same for everyone, out of state could be just a little more. Law's could still be enforced. Parks would operate the same and those funds can fill voids as well as help from state lotteries. Yeah, probably not as simple as that.
Anyway, just food for thought. I'm pretty happy with the ways things are, I'm just a little cynical, a good school of philosophy.
Here's the habitat stamp homepage
[url "http://wildlife.state.co.us/LandWater/HabitatStamp/"]http://wildlife.state.co.us/LandWater/HabitatStamp/[/url]
It says that development is the problem, but in the quarter of the state I live in, the heaviest developed, no areas are being preserved or "in the process" of preservation.
I think the mountains, where no one is or ever will be is safe enough, and development will force its way into the places it must, regardless of that stamp. But as they say, its less than the "price of a couple latte's", yeah, I don't drink latte's, my coffee is cheap, and so my license should be too.