Post by greghopper on Oct 25, 2017 12:40:37 GMT -5
(From another site)
There is some very interesting and important information below from the FWCC meeting with the DNR and DFW.
Notes from FWCC meeting 10/19/17
The rifle rule banning all rifles is a mistake and they are working on a fix. DNR/DFW is very confident that there will be a fix. The governor’s office is working with the execs to get this done before firearm season through emergency executive order. We do not know what the fix looks like yet, because it has not been made yet.
Fish and Wildlife has adopted two packages for fishing. They didn’t go into detail much except that they were geared to cover loopholes in commercial fishing.
They are purposing a bobcat season. It would look like the odder trapping season. Probably start 11/8 and go till the quota is reached or till 1/31. DNR/DFW needs to do a better job of conveying the science behind deciding that we need a season for bobcats/all animals. The anti-hunters are trying to stop the season. When conveying that we need a season we need to keep it to being for the good of the environment/ecological system and not say we need it because they are a problem. The comment section is now open on this online.
They are passing a regulation that raccoons, opossum and coyotes cannot be trapped and moved. They must be trapped and euthanized. We are at carrying capacity on all of these animals.
They want the ALL of the wildlife groups’ support on Alliance of America’s Fish and Wildlife. They are working with Young (Alaska) and Dingley (sp) (Michigan) are putting together a Bill to get funding from mineral taxes that are sitting there to be used for conservation. The Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) has recently rolled out the new campaign in support of the Recovering America's Wildlife Act. The Alliance for America's Fish & Wildlife (AAFW) seeks to create a new funding model that will allow for the conservation of the "full array of fish and wildlife and their associated habitats." In particular, their goal is to provide funding for states to implement their respective conservation action plans (like Texas' TCAP) in order to conserve the 12,000+ species across the country that were determined to be Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCNs).
SWAP = State Wildlife Action Plan, is for organizing conservation in the state. Conservation needs to grow to include more than just the hunt & fish portion. We need to be promoting how conservation improves living in IN, clean air, clean water and healthy soil. We need to work together and get everyone using the same language and onboard to work together. Four primary themes for our state wildlife action plan are 1) Habitat and Environment, 2) Conservation Community, 3) Citizens (fixing the disconnect with today’s citizen and wildlife) and 4) Funding. There are focus areas where we are putting more efforts, but there are efforts all over the state. (I have attached a map) Brad Feaster is the SWAP coordinator. We can email him questions, however if you have questions please send them to us so we can put them all together and he doesn’t have to answer the same question a dozen times.
There is a Grasslands for Gamebirds and Songbirds Sponsorship opportunities. (I will attach a flyer for that.) Improve the grasslands helps insects, birds, non-game, small game and large game for habitat. Important initiatives that culminated the grasslands efforts, SWAP, DFW interest in RCPP-conservation partnership, landscape level habitat development/management, interest in increasing hunting/fishing access & developing access programs. The results are we got Grasslands for Gamebirds and Songbirds and Regional RCPP-Grassland Biodiversity in the Interior Low Plateau. GGS is exclusive to IN. Focus on Bobwhite Quail, Ring-necked pheasant, Henslow’s Sparrow and Loggerhead Shrike. We need to increase habitat by 300% just to maintain the current pheasant population. This also gets us more 3 biologist on the ground. (More detailed notes are attached)
FUNDING IS THE BIG ISSUE. We have hit the point where we will start spending more than we are taking in, in revenue. We do have savings, but that will only last so long. We are looking for grants to help fill some of the gaps. However we need to bring in more revenue. We are looking at small increases in the price of tags. We are also looking at doing away with landowner exemption and charging at least a small fee to get federal matching dollars. 51% of hunters are claiming landowner exemption and not only do we not get any funding from them we do not get any federal match. We are looking for more ideas and ways to bring more conservation dollars in. Encourage people to buy the conservation license plate. We get $25, 50% for land acquisition and 50% for habitat improvement. Encourage fisherman to spend the extra $8 for the hunt fish combo license. That gets us $42 more in federal matching than buying just the fishing license. Adding fishing combo to a hunting license get us $9 more. If the person were to just donate the money we would not get the federal match. A question about lifetime license funds came up, and that money is for land acquisition only. There is roughly $9,000,000 remaining. On a good note the DNR is closer to fully staffed than it has been in a long time. WE finally got pay in line with surrounding states which has made it easier to recruit and retain quality staff. They are 93% full, which is about as close to fully staffed as they get. The DFW operating fund ALL comes from license fees and federal match. The law enforcement side comes 50-60% from license fees and federal match, the rest comes from the general fund. MESSAGE OF NEEDING MORE FUNDING FOR CONSERVATION NEEDS TO COME FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE LEGISLATORS. Push the message of how conservation improves the quality of life in our communities. We MUST have regular interaction with our legislators. We should try to work with all of the groups to create a day on the hill where we spend part of the day at the capitol building and invite our representatives and senators to talk with us, perhaps over lunch. Most industries or groups organize a day like this, we should too.
Wildlife Science is ramping up CWD monitoring in Northern IN. They are filling a wildlife bio nutrition position. They had rea trouble recruiting and keeping people, but that has been fixed.
Forestry has been hosting meetings regarding habitat improvement and logging. They are getting a lot of push back from the forest alignment and other groups. They could use some support. They are also heavily underfunded. Once again encourage people to buy conservation license plates. Also encourage them to come out and support our forestry division on land improvement and logging.
Fishing we have a lot of turn around. Around 800,000 people have bought a license only once in the last 6 years. They are working on email campaigns to boost license sales and bring people back to fishing. We can encourage friends that fish and don’t hunt to purchase the combo tag. IT is $25 instead of $17. However the $8 extra gets us $42 more in federal matching right now. Federal matching is up currently in hunting licenses do to the spike I equipment purchases over the last few years. We have a draft of the reactivation effort and the email blasts, but it is a draft and the announcement will be out soon. If you do not currently get the DNR/DFW announcements, than you can go to their webpage and enter your information. It will match up your licenses and hunter safety course number if you have taken it. By giving them your email address you will also get all the latest updates, surveys and information.
Conservations Officers need help protecting small game, especially reptiles. The box turtle is being caught and illegally sold on the black market. Also ginseng and other thefts are still a big problem. Don’t hesitate to call the poacher tip line if you see anything out of the ordinary. They currently have 22 vacancies that they will probably start filling when Director Arnold gets up and running.
There is a lady’s pheasant hunt at Camp Atterbury 11/19/17.
There is some very interesting and important information below from the FWCC meeting with the DNR and DFW.
Notes from FWCC meeting 10/19/17
The rifle rule banning all rifles is a mistake and they are working on a fix. DNR/DFW is very confident that there will be a fix. The governor’s office is working with the execs to get this done before firearm season through emergency executive order. We do not know what the fix looks like yet, because it has not been made yet.
Fish and Wildlife has adopted two packages for fishing. They didn’t go into detail much except that they were geared to cover loopholes in commercial fishing.
They are purposing a bobcat season. It would look like the odder trapping season. Probably start 11/8 and go till the quota is reached or till 1/31. DNR/DFW needs to do a better job of conveying the science behind deciding that we need a season for bobcats/all animals. The anti-hunters are trying to stop the season. When conveying that we need a season we need to keep it to being for the good of the environment/ecological system and not say we need it because they are a problem. The comment section is now open on this online.
They are passing a regulation that raccoons, opossum and coyotes cannot be trapped and moved. They must be trapped and euthanized. We are at carrying capacity on all of these animals.
They want the ALL of the wildlife groups’ support on Alliance of America’s Fish and Wildlife. They are working with Young (Alaska) and Dingley (sp) (Michigan) are putting together a Bill to get funding from mineral taxes that are sitting there to be used for conservation. The Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) has recently rolled out the new campaign in support of the Recovering America's Wildlife Act. The Alliance for America's Fish & Wildlife (AAFW) seeks to create a new funding model that will allow for the conservation of the "full array of fish and wildlife and their associated habitats." In particular, their goal is to provide funding for states to implement their respective conservation action plans (like Texas' TCAP) in order to conserve the 12,000+ species across the country that were determined to be Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCNs).
SWAP = State Wildlife Action Plan, is for organizing conservation in the state. Conservation needs to grow to include more than just the hunt & fish portion. We need to be promoting how conservation improves living in IN, clean air, clean water and healthy soil. We need to work together and get everyone using the same language and onboard to work together. Four primary themes for our state wildlife action plan are 1) Habitat and Environment, 2) Conservation Community, 3) Citizens (fixing the disconnect with today’s citizen and wildlife) and 4) Funding. There are focus areas where we are putting more efforts, but there are efforts all over the state. (I have attached a map) Brad Feaster is the SWAP coordinator. We can email him questions, however if you have questions please send them to us so we can put them all together and he doesn’t have to answer the same question a dozen times.
There is a Grasslands for Gamebirds and Songbirds Sponsorship opportunities. (I will attach a flyer for that.) Improve the grasslands helps insects, birds, non-game, small game and large game for habitat. Important initiatives that culminated the grasslands efforts, SWAP, DFW interest in RCPP-conservation partnership, landscape level habitat development/management, interest in increasing hunting/fishing access & developing access programs. The results are we got Grasslands for Gamebirds and Songbirds and Regional RCPP-Grassland Biodiversity in the Interior Low Plateau. GGS is exclusive to IN. Focus on Bobwhite Quail, Ring-necked pheasant, Henslow’s Sparrow and Loggerhead Shrike. We need to increase habitat by 300% just to maintain the current pheasant population. This also gets us more 3 biologist on the ground. (More detailed notes are attached)
FUNDING IS THE BIG ISSUE. We have hit the point where we will start spending more than we are taking in, in revenue. We do have savings, but that will only last so long. We are looking for grants to help fill some of the gaps. However we need to bring in more revenue. We are looking at small increases in the price of tags. We are also looking at doing away with landowner exemption and charging at least a small fee to get federal matching dollars. 51% of hunters are claiming landowner exemption and not only do we not get any funding from them we do not get any federal match. We are looking for more ideas and ways to bring more conservation dollars in. Encourage people to buy the conservation license plate. We get $25, 50% for land acquisition and 50% for habitat improvement. Encourage fisherman to spend the extra $8 for the hunt fish combo license. That gets us $42 more in federal matching than buying just the fishing license. Adding fishing combo to a hunting license get us $9 more. If the person were to just donate the money we would not get the federal match. A question about lifetime license funds came up, and that money is for land acquisition only. There is roughly $9,000,000 remaining. On a good note the DNR is closer to fully staffed than it has been in a long time. WE finally got pay in line with surrounding states which has made it easier to recruit and retain quality staff. They are 93% full, which is about as close to fully staffed as they get. The DFW operating fund ALL comes from license fees and federal match. The law enforcement side comes 50-60% from license fees and federal match, the rest comes from the general fund. MESSAGE OF NEEDING MORE FUNDING FOR CONSERVATION NEEDS TO COME FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE LEGISLATORS. Push the message of how conservation improves the quality of life in our communities. We MUST have regular interaction with our legislators. We should try to work with all of the groups to create a day on the hill where we spend part of the day at the capitol building and invite our representatives and senators to talk with us, perhaps over lunch. Most industries or groups organize a day like this, we should too.
Wildlife Science is ramping up CWD monitoring in Northern IN. They are filling a wildlife bio nutrition position. They had rea trouble recruiting and keeping people, but that has been fixed.
Forestry has been hosting meetings regarding habitat improvement and logging. They are getting a lot of push back from the forest alignment and other groups. They could use some support. They are also heavily underfunded. Once again encourage people to buy conservation license plates. Also encourage them to come out and support our forestry division on land improvement and logging.
Fishing we have a lot of turn around. Around 800,000 people have bought a license only once in the last 6 years. They are working on email campaigns to boost license sales and bring people back to fishing. We can encourage friends that fish and don’t hunt to purchase the combo tag. IT is $25 instead of $17. However the $8 extra gets us $42 more in federal matching right now. Federal matching is up currently in hunting licenses do to the spike I equipment purchases over the last few years. We have a draft of the reactivation effort and the email blasts, but it is a draft and the announcement will be out soon. If you do not currently get the DNR/DFW announcements, than you can go to their webpage and enter your information. It will match up your licenses and hunter safety course number if you have taken it. By giving them your email address you will also get all the latest updates, surveys and information.
Conservations Officers need help protecting small game, especially reptiles. The box turtle is being caught and illegally sold on the black market. Also ginseng and other thefts are still a big problem. Don’t hesitate to call the poacher tip line if you see anything out of the ordinary. They currently have 22 vacancies that they will probably start filling when Director Arnold gets up and running.
There is a lady’s pheasant hunt at Camp Atterbury 11/19/17.
