The Secretary of Interior announced Tuesday the 13th of June, the amount of the annual allocation of funding via the Pittman-Robertson/ Dingell-Johnson funds. These funds are a tax voluntarily levied on sportsmen and recreational shooters. The funds are earmarked for wildlife and sport fishing restoration as they have been most years (though there was a misallocation scandal during President Clinton’s Presidency).
www.doi.gov/…
A state by state breakdown of allocations is below.
wsfrprograms.fws.gov/…
In looking at the numbers I noticed something that rang a bell. Thinking about our recent electoral loss.
Alaska got the most funds, then Texas. Funding is allocated based on number of licenses sold and other data which is mixed into an algorithm to determine who gets what. (No more money for bonuses for political appointees or European trips.) Can you tell I’m still really pissed at the scummy stealing of conservation funding by anti hunters back in the 90s?)
Where was I, oh ya, the next three states with the most funding were Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Ring a bell? Those states figure prominently in a recent election did they? Those three states have the second, third, and fourth, highest number of licenses sold to different individuals. (many licenses to one person don’t count). Texas has more, they are number one, probably hunting armadillos for the pot or something (sorry Texans, just kidding, ya’ll welcome to come get an elk any day)
In my state, we already have restored all the game species like that pronghorn up above. We have all kinds of elk, and an exploding moose population, more bear probably than when Euros landed on the continent, to say nothing of mountain lions up the wazoo and mule deer, so many geese the season extends on into next year, turkeys everywhere and so on.
We spend a fair portion of our money doing things like studying prairie dogs, and restoring the black footed ferret that feeds on them. We conserve minnows and rare plants. We even have a list of species of concern to our state. Not a federal list but a state list. Nineteen ever luvin million dollars to my state, that’s a lot here.
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Those three states are sometimes important, electorally I’m saying. Lotta doggone deer. It would maybe be a good idea to not piss off the hunters of those states. You know, not bad mouth them and call them nasty names. One thing I’ve noticed about upper great lakes hunters is they trend even more Democratic than hunters elsewhere. If we were to anger them by pushing policies detrimental to their hunting even Democrats might stay home. And maybe they did.
Obama went out of his way to assure these people that he wouldn’t act in ways detrimental to hunting. Promises by President Obama were made, and they were kept. We should be so lucky to have politicians like him again.
Total contributions by anti hunters $0.