The recent direction New York State’s conservation and habitat programs are heading toward is rather scary, or it should be to anyone who understands our natural environment. Whether they’re being restructured, reduced or eliminated entirely, the priorities once at the heart of sound conservation in the state are rapidly being pushed aside to favor the totally environmental and non-consumptive ones that, while giving a “feel good” impact, will do little or nothing to insure sound conservation in the future.
Protecting our environment should obviously be one priority of the Department of Environmental Conservation, but it shouldn’t dominate at the cost of ignoring critical conservation safeguards and practices. Otherwise, it should be renamed the “Department of Environment” and drop the word “Conservation” altogether.
The bulk of the DEC’s attention and efforts now go toward insuring our natural environment qualities while also providing a wide variety of non-consumptive outdoor recreational activities and programs available to the public. But as the number of people who hunt or trap has declined, the DEC’s emphasis on managing wildlife and habitat has declined right along with it. What is alarming is these licensed activities, along with fishing, have, via the Conservation Fund, historically paid the tab for much of the conservation and management work done in the state. The growing popularity of non-licensed activities such as hiking, birding, wildlife watching, canoeing, kayaking, tubing, etc. is now a higher priority for DEC than hunting and trapping. The bulk of incidental funds and sales taxes generated by these non-licensed activities goes into the General Fund, supposedly to be used to maintain or expand these opportunities, but that’s not guaranteed.
Keep in mind that the state — first under the old pre-1971 Conservation Department, and then the DEC – has historically depended on hunting and trapping to manage wildlife that might otherwise become overabundant to the point of endangering our natural habitat or the public health. If the DEC – and Albany in general – continues to turn their backs on the role these activities play in conservation, what will be the consequences in the years ahead?
Perhaps the fault lies with our elected state officials, the majority of whom now calling the shots hail from the large urban regions downstate and appear to know next to nothing about our upstate environment’s day-to-day natural workings. Most couldn’t tell the difference between a fox and coyote if one bit them in the butt. And for many of them, it seems that killing a deer on the highway is “an accident,” while killing one via hunting is “socially unacceptable.” This “head-in-the-sand” approach now seems to be dictating DEC policies and funding.
This year the large log building that was built on the State Fairgrounds in Syracuse to promote hunting, fishing and trapping during fair week will be totally “green” – meaning the themes there will have nothing to do with fishing, hunting or trapping activities. In fact, the DEC will not be selling licenses or permits there this year, the first time this has happened since the building was constructed (using Conservation Fund money from hunting, fishing and trapping licenses). The DEC’s reasoning? Cost cutting. However, what about the thousands of dollars generated by all the licenses historically sold there during the fair?
More evidence that DEC is becoming “totally green” can be found on its web site. Specifically its new DEC TV page (http://www.dec.ny.gov/dectv/dectv.html). Its playlist consists of 63 segments, only one of which involves hunting. If the DEC ignores hunting/trapping -- how will the state entice new hunters and trappers to be motivated to join the ranks when hunting and trapping are not part of the DEC’s promotional themes, and how will the state’s deer, bear, coyote, raccoon, skunk and other wildlife populations be managed or controlled in the future?
Regardless of whether we hunt, trap, fish or buy any type of DEC-related license each year, we all share a personal and vested interest in how the state manages our natural resources and especially wildlife and its habitat. Sure, it’s all part of our environment, but the importance of including sound conservation in the formula should never be ignored because of ignorance or personal, social or political biases.
A good example of ignoring conservation as it relates to the total environment was proven out in Pennsylvania in recent years when the state’s deer herd reached such a level that the state’s whole natural environment was in danger of being destroyed. And because of the damage the deer were doing to the native flora, many other wildlife species were also endangered. Increased harvesting of the excess deer solved the problem, but it will still take several years before that state’s natural habitat totally recovers.
New York has an estimated million deer, and about a quarter of these are presently removed annually by hunting. A lesser amount are killed on highways. Now imagine what would happen if hunting soon declined by a half – a distinct possibility based on the declining number of hunters in recent years. Left unchecked, our state’s overall deer herd would increase annually by 30 to 40 percent, and without removing close to that percentage each year, it would only take a few years and we’d be inundated with whitetails, eating our crops and flora, colliding with our vehicles, and possibly becoming diseased.
And while many of us are becoming frustrated with the direction the DEC is heading, perhaps the recent coup in the Senate was an extension of the frustration of falling under the iron-fisted control of downstate powers that seem to care little about the challenges being faced upstate.