by Bill Bruner

I have been a practicing conservationist for 62 years. My first hunting trip was with my Dad when I was just 6 years old. My father was a member of a sportsmen’s club that was involved with habitat and wildlife conservation since their founding during the Depression of the 1930s. The successes of our wildlife restoration over the past 150+ years rests entirely on the shoulders of those hunters and fishermen/fisherwomen who held our wildlife in high regard. The first wildlife regulation, sponsored by hunters and signed by President Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War was a bill that restricted the taking of buffalo in the Montana territory simply for hides and bones. Unregulated market hunting all but wiped out white-tailed deer, many species of waterfowl, pronghorn, beaver, bear and wild turkeys. It was hunters/sportsmen who pushed for regulations that would end market hunting. The bill become law in 1900 known as the Lacey Act. It was sponsored by Rep John F. Lacey an Iowa Republican and signed into law by President William McKinley. Who succeeded McKinley? It was Theodore Roosevelt who was a well known hunter and conservationist and was responsible for establishing the National Wildlife Refuge System.

While Teddy was well known as a conservationist, there were several other men and women responsible for passing other conservation efforts. Jay Norwood Darling better known as Ding Darling was an award winning cartoonist who founded the National Wildlife Federation and designed the first duck stamp for the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act which funded the purchase of wetlands which were severely depleted by farming practices and the lengthy drought known as the Dust Bowl. The duck stamp act was to fund purchases of wetlands in the U.S. however most waterfowl had their breeding grounds in Canada so there was a need to fund the management of wetlands in our northern neighbor. Ducks Unlimited was founded in 1937 by hunters here in the U.S but eventually included hunters in Canada and Mexico. DU is a very vibrant non profit organization still today, credited with the outright purchase of over 5 million acres and the preservation of over 35 million acres in North America. These wetlands are hosts to over 900 species of wildlife. How many acres have been funded by “Protect Our Wildlife” of Stowe?

The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 was sponsored by Nevada Senator Key Pittman and VA congressman Willis Robertson both hunting advocates. This was a self-inflicted 11% tax on hunting equipment and ammunition that would be distributed amongst the states for wildlife conservation efforts as well as hunter safety education. The sponsors of these wildlife restoration efforts were hunters/volunteers. They did not rely on government to solve the problem. There are millions of us who spend many hours per year in the outdoors and we are responsible for billions of dollars spent yearly to provide sound wildlife practices in conjunction with professional wildlife biologists.

There is an effort to change the make up of the VT Fish and Game Department and the Fish and Game Council by folks who never owned a hunting or fishing license and therefore never funded the aforementioned wildlife success stories but yet they think they know better. Vote NO on S-258.