Should deer hunters pay for a state resource?

Published Saturday, May 26, 2007

MDHA spent a good share of time trying to ward off many attempts to increase the license fees for deer hunting. It was never about the extra money.

A few dollars here and there would not prevent most folks from getting out to their favorite deer woods to enjoy some quality time. The concern was about putting all the financial responsibility on deer hunters to pay for the management of a Minnesota state resource.

Except through conservation organizations such as MDHA, hunters virtually had no say in the overall management of the resource, yet were required to foot the bill for it. Recently however, the DNR has allowed significant public input into some aspects of deer management; most notably, deer population goal setting. The consensus is that the deer population must be reduced in many parts of the state. Now, no thanks to the Bluffland Whitetails Association and the politicians who pushed the Venison Donation bill, hunters will once again be the only segment of the population who will pay to reduce the deer population and pay an extra dollar for a bonus tag.

This extra dollar will not prevent me from buying a bonus deer tag if I choose to buy one. This extra dollar is also not the issue. The issue is that deer hunters are the only group of Minnesota Citizens being asked to contribute to the deer population reduction goals.

I applaud any conservation organization that wants to provide nutritious venison to people who want and need it. But when deer hunters become the only group to pay for another social welfare program with the mandatory add-on license fee, something is wrong. Given the opportunity, I would openly donate to a Venison Donation Program. The whole program concept has been and is enviable.

But tacking the cost of managing the program onto any game licenses somehow diminishes the purpose of license fees.

When the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association chose not to endorse the mandatory $1fee, it was not belittling the noble cause of helping people and helping to manage the resource. After all, MDHA has had a voluntary Venison Donation Program in practice since 1991.

Working with many entities of government, MDHA opened the door for allowing venison donations in Minnesota. It has also spent millions of dollars helping to manage our precious deer resource and provided countless educational opportunities.

What MDHA was hoping for was a little common sense to the way a statewide venison donation program would be funded. What we should have gotten was a strictly voluntarily funded program, maybe a program funded through the existing surplus deer license funds (that were transferred to other divisions instead), or money derived though an LCMR grant (your gambling Environmental Trust Fund dollars).

What we got is a program funded exclusively by deer hunters. No corporate donations, no program benefactor donations, and no concerned citizen donations; just deer hunter mandatory funding fees.

Is anyone interested in a similar Bullhead or Goose Donation Program?

Wayne Enger - Perham

Wayne Enger - Perham