On October 13, 2017, Governor Hogan issued EXECUTIVE ORDER 01.01.2017.24 creating the Maryland Outdoor Recreation Economic Commission with a final report due date of December 1, 2019. Below are links to both the EXECUTIVE ORDER and the FINAL REPORT.
https://dnr.maryland.gov/Documents/more/MORE_Executive-Order.pdf
http://dlslibrary.state.md.us/publications/Exec/DNR/EXORD01.01.2017.24G_2019.pdf
If you’re a hunter in Maryland, the FINAL REPORT may leave you with more questions than answers.
The Report provides a detailed inventory of outdoor activities in Maryland, including acknowledgement of the disconnect between today’s youth and the great outdoors. This is all positive indeed. However, the Hunters of Maryland believe there was an opportunity lost not only to better showcase and promote the traditions of hunting – as a powerful multi-million dollar economic engine -- but publicly recognize that hunters, not taxpayers, shoulder the costs of wildlife research and management in Maryland. And since there has not been an increase in the cost of a regular hunting license in Maryland for over 30 years, it’s easy to align the delta dots – and the attendant detrimental impact -- between escalating costs and declining revenues. Yet, does not the entire citizenry benefit from wildlife research/management?
For example, the citizenry has little understanding of the American System of Conservation Funding (link below) whereby hunters/anglers underwrite natural resource management through their payment of license fees, stamps and equipment purchases, aka “special funds”. In Maryland, there are no “general funds” – aka, taxpayer moneys – appropriated for wildlife research/management. Look no further than the Public Trust Doctrine which recognizes that “government has an affirmative duty to protect, manage, and conserve fish and wildlife”, aka Chapter 367 of the Acts of 2010 (Conservation Law Enforcement Act of 2010). The Hunters of Maryland tackled this controversial issue during the 2020 Session of the Maryland General Assembly. In the final analysis, HOM successfully convinced the Hogan Administration and the General Assembly to appropriate – for the “First” time -- $100,000 in fiscal year 2021 general funds for DNR’s Wildlife & Heritage Service. These moneys represented a true milestone in Maryland where taxpayers would finally share in the costs of wildlife research/management plus help promote hunter retention and recruitment at this pivotal time in history.
http://congressionalsportsmen.org/uploads/page/ASCF%20one%20page.pdf
Sadly, this historic appropriation of taxpayer moneys fell prey to the pandemic when the Board of Public Works reduced State spending by $413 million on July 1, 2020, inclusive of the $100,000 in general funds to DNR’s Wildlife & Heritage Service.
Looking ahead, the Hunters of Maryland will continue to promote the traditions and values of being afield, including creative strategies to get today’s youth off the couch and into the fields and waterways. It’s not a chicken little argument to profess that hunting in Maryland – as we know it today – could be lost within a generation absent intervention by a concerned few today.
