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Cycle of Success
2008-05-05
The Next Time Someone Tells You
Hunters Are Bad for the Environment…
Natural resources, forests, lakes, shorelines, streams, fields, foliage, fish and wildlife are some of our country’s most valuable assets. We, Americans, are able to enjoy these rich and beautiful resources in a virtually unrestricted manner. Very few people around the world can boast of such a privilege.
Whether hunting, fishing, or just being afield, over 87 million people enjoy the outdoors each year according to the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation published by the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Many of these folks never pick up a rod, gun or bow. They simply enjoy the outdoors by camping, hiking, observing wildlife and being among the trees and on, or near the water.
You, as a hunter and/or angler, play a major role in providing and maintaining this wonderful, American resource for all of us to enjoy, including the tree-huggers.
Whether you know it our not, you do this through a tax that is levied on most fishing, firearms, archery products and the purchase of your hunting and fishing licenses. Now wait, I know generally “tax” is a bad and nasty word. But this tax is very different.
Some history. From the turn of the 20th century into the 1930’s, as a result of unregulated hunting for commercial purposes exasperated by serious droughts, wildlife in the United States was decimated. In order to remedy the situation folks within Congress, the hunting community and leaders within the Outdoors industry joined together in the Sportsman-Conservationist movement that resulted in the Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 (commonly known as the Pittman-Robertson Act). The Pittman-Robertson Act provided a funding source for state fish and wildlife agencies to hire wildlife professionals so that management decisions could be based on sound scientific principles. In order to fund these restoration and conservation activities, an excise tax was established on hunting equipment such as firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment including arrows.
A similar piece of legislation, the Sport Fish Restoration Act of 1950, was later enacted to provided funding to support fishery management by establishing an excise tax on fishing equipment. This legislation (commonly known as the Dingell-Johnson Act) was later amended to include a portion of the Federal Gas Tax for fuel used by the boating community.
How it works. Embedded in the cost of the compound bow, crossbow, arrow, shotgun, handgun, fishing rod, reel, shells, cartridges and much of what you buy in order to hunt and fish is this excise tax. You don’t see it, but I assure you it is there. These taxes generate over $700 million annually for both fish and wildlife resource management. Roughly $300 million of this is earmarked for wildlife management and comes directly from hunters’ expenditures. The few of us who participate on the archery side provide about 10% of the wildlife funding, something over $30 million a year.
These monies are not just absorbed by our government and used anyway the powers to be desire. They are first deposited in a trust administered the US Fish & Wildlife Service and then allocated back to the individual states as grants to support your state’s activities at developing and conserving the natural resources you enjoy. The folks at the US Fish & Wildlife Service and within your state’s Fish & Wildlife agencies, a bunch of biologists and environmentalists who are dedicated to this important activity, call this the “Cycle of Success." This is how it works. Click here.
The point of all this is that you, the hunter and/or angler, are a very important part of the “Cycle of Success." It is your participation in these sports that has brought our wildlife natural resources back from their dismal condition in 1930’s, to the most abundant in the world today.We, as Americans, get to enjoy these resources, whether we hunt, fish or not. Many people around the world do not have the natural resources we enjoy, or the access to them if they do exist.
So, the next time some uninformed person and/or tree-hugger suggests that you, a hunter, are bad for environment, you have some facts to tell them.Without you and your fishing buddies, there may not be a tree to hug.
About the author: Rick Szekelyi is CEO of Horton Manufacturing Company, LLC, Board Member of the Archery Trade Association, Chairman of ATA’s Crossbow and Government Affairs Committee. He also is a member of the Industry Steering Committee of The Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies.
