Wildlife belongs to the state of Idaho and all its people, but the hunters and fishermen are the only ones paying for it. Fish and wildlife agencies are funded the same way they were funded in the early 1900's. Yet the expectations that people have of what we do and the social ramifications of wildlife management in today's society with the number of people we have and the kind of development we have is completely different. So yesterday's solutions aren't necessarily adequate to solve tomorrow's problems. We are looking at new funding sources. I think the U.S. Congress is looking seriously at the gap between traditional hunting and fishing revenue sources and the need to manage all the wildlife for all the people. Nongame wildlife and endangered species is a larger and larger part of what we do and what we're expected to do on behalf of not just hunters and fishermen but all the citizens; yet there's no real good mechanism to pay for that. That creates some of its own problems with traditional supporters of the dept. They funded the Fish and Game Dept. and they want it to focus on hunting and fishing. But there's also a lot of people in Idaho who don't necessarily hunt or fish but want to know that the wildlife is there and that it's well cared for and adequately protected. It's not realistic to expect the hunters and fishermen to eagerly leap up to the plate and pay more out of their pocket for all the additional things that have been added on as responsibilities of fish and game agencies. Some folks think it would be a reasonable thing for the state of Idaho, through some general tax measure or new funding initiative, to come up with part of the bill. And then there are others, the traditional users, who say we don't want that because we don't want all the associated politics. But all our money right now is appropriated through the Legislature anyway, so in my view I don't see how having some general tax revenue would change very much.
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