Regardless of whether you hunt or not, buy hunting and fishing licenses or not, the handling and mindset behind the closing of the Reynolds Game Farm near Ithaca—the last remaining DEC pheasant-raising facility in the state— and the disposition of the remaining 8,000 pheasants there should make you a nervous, since no one had any say whatsoever in the DEC decision, not even those who’d footed the entire bill.
Keep in mind three things surrounding this charade, which is what it basically is. First is that this program was totally funded annually by sportsmen dollars through licenses and special federal taxes on sporting equipment such as guns and ammo, etc. Not a penny of the general public’s tax money was involved. Second is neither the State nor the DEC ever consulted the state’s sportsmen, or any of their representative groups such as the Conservation Fund Advisory Board, Fish and Wildlife Management Board or the New York State Conservation Council on the matter prior to making the decision and announcement.
The third thing to keep in mind is that this was done, according to the administration, as a budget-saving measure because of the state's critical financial situation. That in itself is a very lame excuse when the actual figures (and “supposed savings”) are closely reviewed.
The source of the following financial numbers is the Fiscal Report portion (provided by the NYS Division of the Budget) of the 2007-2008 Conservation Fund Advisory Board’s (CFAB) Annual Report and provided by Fred Neff, a past director of the NYS Conservation Council.
1. Total DEC Budget for 2008 (estimate) - at least $1 Billion. Probably closer to $1.5 Billion.
2. DEC Fish and Wildlife Program expenditures for 2007/2008 – $123,553,514.
3. Fish, Wildlife, and Marine Resources (FWMR) expenditures for 2007/2008 – $54,736,231.
4. Conservation Fund Traditional Account Receipts for 2007/2008 - $42,600,960.73. (That's income).
5. Federal Aid for Fish and Wildlife Programs – $19,472,350. (That's also income).
6. Pheasant Program Expenditures for 2008 – $750,000 (maximum).
Now, let's add number four and number five – that's $62,073,310.73. This is the income from license sales and federal aid that's based on the license sales. In other words, sportsmen and federal aid provided about 50 percent of the TOTAL Fish and Wildlife Programs expenditures (that's number two above) for 2008 and 113.4 percent of what FWMR (number three) expended for their programs (which included the Pheasant Program).
Now let's look at just how the $750,000 Pheasant Program fits into the big picture:
• Fish and Wildlife Programs expenditures are $123.6M/$1.5B or 8.2 percent of DEC's total budget.
• FWMR expenditures are $54.7M/$1.5B or 3.6 percent of DEC's total budget and
• The Pheasant Program is $750K/$1.5B equals 0.05 percent of DEC's total budget and $750K/$54.7M equals 1.37 percent of FWMR's expenditures.
An important consideration here is that the state will not "save" $750K since they're going to reassign the game farm employees to something else within DEC. At most, there might be a savings of $300K to $400K, which would bring that “savings” for all Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources programs in the state down to less than one percent.
Unlike the state’s fish stocking program that annually releases a million or so fish into lakes and streams, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) doesn’t raise and release rabbits, squirrels, grouse, waterfowl, or other game species. These, like deer, bear and wild turkey, are self-propagating, given the proper habitat. So basically DEC only needs to provide the proper habitat. But they hardly do that any more. When was the last time you saw a varying hare in the state forests, or flushed a covey of grouse, or found a concentration of migrating woodcock? Considering the habitat improvement DEC does today, it’s a miracle we have what little diversity of wildlife we do.
As far as the pheasant raising program is concerned, for what it cost to raise these birds, the state could have purchased and released probably twice as many from private game farms. But did they? Many sportsmen group officials believe Judith Enck, Gov. Paterson’s environmental advisor, and reputed to hold primary power over DEC and its commissioner Grannis was the primary force in the pheasant debacle, a first step in vastly curtailing fish and wildlife programs and expenditures so they could be siphoned into environmental programs, Enick’s favorite taxpayer “charity.”
What gives the governor or anyone else in his environmental heavy administration the right to decide what to do with the remaining 8,000 breeder birds without first asking those who had provided and paid them, and for what they thought was part of a DEC wildlife program? Makes one wonder if our state fisheries hatchery budget might be targeted next, and the breeding age fish there killed and “donated” to food pantries. One other question to this remains: If it involves Federal Aid, since federal tax-sharing money was involved in the pheasant-raising program, could the state could be liable to the Federal Government for the sum involved since the Fed’s funds weren’t used for their stated purpose?
In a letter to DEC Commissioner Grannis, thanking him for closing the facility, Patrick Kwan, state director of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation’s most powerful and wealthiest animal rights and anti hunting and fishing group, wrote, “… it is absolutely inexcusable for taxpayer money to be going toward what is essentially recreational killing and target practice using live animals." Note he intentionally used the term “taxpayer money” rather than “sportsmen money.” This is typical of how HSUS misquotes and fabricates facts to meet its own agendas, which is to end hunting, fishing trapping, farming, lab testing and basically anything even remotely involving fish, animals or any living creatures, regardless of their abundance, need to be managed, or nature’s ability to support unchecked numbers of them.
It appears more and more obvious that the State of New York and its Department of Environmental Conservation’s goals are totally about the environment, with little or no concern about conservation and managing and providing for the creatures that reside there. So Merry Christmas, New York sportsmen/women. Look for a chunk of coal in your stocking from the DEC this year, and maybe the next and the next ….

Oxford Club to hold open house
Oxford Rod & Gun Club is holding an Open House, a FREE night of fun archery shooting and refreshments in our its new HEATED indoor archery range, Wednesday Dec. 17 anytime between 6-9 p.m. Bring the kids to shoot also! Leagues start the second week of January 2009. Sign up at the open house or by calling Billy at (607) 244-1818