Message from the Assistant Director for Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program Seventy-five years of successful wildlife management is the remarkable legacy of the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, and the cause of our 75th celebration. Along with the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act, it is the foundation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program (WSFR) and a cornerstone of the North American model of fish and wildlife management – a model venerated for its principles, celebrated for its performance, and embraced for its promise for the future. The two Acts mark the triumph of American conservation, founded on public ownership of wildlife, reliance on partnerships, and commitment to preserve our natural heritage. America’s history of wildlife management began in the chaos of the “commons”—the vast wild lands jointly held and used by all U.S. citizens as a collective asset. A seemingly unlimited resource was relentlessly hunted and fished by a growing population with an insatiable appetite for the food, clothing, trophies, and commercial products wildlife provided. In the jargon of economics, the marginal benefit of hunting one more animal accrued exclusively to the individual hunter, while the cumulative costs of unlimited hunting fell crushingly on the shoulders of society. The discrepancy in benefit and cost led to uncontrolled harvest and the rapid decline of wildlife nationwide. State wildlife agencies stepped into the picture in the early 20th Century with the goal of
affirming public ownership of wildlife – the Public Trust Doctrine – and regulating its harvest with licenses. Yet, apart from the revenue from license sales, the wildlife agencies operated on a financial shoe string. Pittman-Robertson and, later, Dingell Johnson came to their fiscal rescue. The excise taxes raised by those Acts – excise taxes paid for by hunters and anglers – along with license fees established the principle of user pays/public benefits, the fiscal foundation of game management in America. The funding enabled by these Acts, however, is only part of the success story. The glue that secures the framework of modern wildlife management is partnership. Our celebration of WSFR’s 75th Anniversary is really a celebration of the power of partnership, of the hunters and anglers who pay the cost of conservation with fees and taxes, the outdoor sporting industries that make the system of excise taxes possible, the State fish and wildlife agencies that provide the scientific know-how to manage game, the many citizen groups and nongovernmental organizations that expand the States’ capacity to manage wildlife, and the USFWS that works handin-hand with the States to administer the WSFR Program. We should take pride in the legacy of the WSFR Program over the past 75 years. It has helped empower our State agencies and citizen conservationists to achieve as a nation what no other nation in the world has achieved: unparalleled wildlife
Credit: DOI/Tami A. Heilman
Hannibal Bolton
management success. Sadly, the full story of that success is still largely untold; but it will be told. The new Wildlife TRACS performance reporting system for the WSFR Program will make that story known and available to everyone who cares about wildlife conservation. Finally, to quote the great English bard, what’s past is prologue. Just as the North American model calmed the tempest of the wildlife commons, that same model points the way to conserving the diversity and richness of all wildlife in America. It won’t be easy, but through the synergy of federal, state, and private partnerships, the work that began 75 years ago in 1937 with the passage of Pittman Robertson will carry us to the next 75 years, into a future where our success will extend to all species.
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