License increase
- Thread starter cspot
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Here's some more information about the proposed increase that has been mentioned yet...
- The state hasn't had an increase in 15 years.
- Funds are needed to purchase the AEP lands.
- Come discuss this topic at the legislative reception - https://www.sportsmensalliance.org/news/join-us-2019-sportsmens-alliance-legislative-reception/
From the Sportsmen's Alliance website:
A coalition of Ohio’s premier hunting, fishing and trapping organizations are calling on Ohio’s new governor, Mike DeWine, and the Ohio General Assembly to address a long-ignored funding shortfall that has prevented the Ohio Department of Natural Resources – Division of Wildlife from addressing access, habitat and facilities issues, which has now become a full-blown crisis.
The Division of Wildlife, which is nearly fully funded by Ohio sportsmen has not had a resident license fee increase since 2004, the longest stretch in its history. The 15-year span without an increase has caused the Division of Wildlife to fall badly behind the funding curve, jeopardizing projects that improve habitat, hunter access, boating access, target shooting ranges and dam repair. The agency is also short 25 wildlife officers due to a lack of funds for cadet classes and staffing.
Worse, the state has not been able to put together a comprehensive funding package to retain American Electric Power’s ReCreation lands. Four years ago, AEP announced its intent to sell the 60,000-acre property (located in Guernsey, Morgan, Muskingum, and Noble Counties). This land has been open to the public for decades for hunting, fishing, trapping and other recreational activities. The cash-strapped Division of Wildlife has not been able to make a substantial purchase of the available lands, which represent 10 percent of all available property open to the public in Ohio.
Sportsmen’s groups, including the Sportsmen’s Alliance, began raising these issues more than six years ago, when a simple hunting and fishing license increase could have addressed most of the problem.
“The declining level of service to hunters, anglers and trappers is unacceptable, and the loss of these lands would be absolutely devastating,” said Evan Heusinkveld, president of the Sportsmen’s Alliance, which is coordinating the Protect What’s Right Coalition to address the funding crisis. “Sportsmen and women have been willing to support a modest increase in hunting and fishing fees to ensure quality hunting, fishing and trapping, and the habitat that sustains abundant fish and wildlife. Today however, the problem is far too large to solve with a simple fee increase. We’re counting on Gov. DeWine and the legislature to work with us to craft a comprehensive solution.”
In addition to the Sportsmen’s Alliance, the coalition of concerned organizations include Buckeye Firearms Association, Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation-OH Chapter, Ohio Conservation Federation, Ohio State Trappers Association, Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever, Safari Club International-Central Ohio, and many local conservation clubs representing tens of thousands of Ohio sportsmen and women. The coalition has been working for more than a year to prepare for this effort. After years of seeing these issues ignored, they’ve been encouraged by dialogue with Gov. DeWine and his team.
“We have been encouraged by Gov. DeWine’s willingness to hear our concerns as he was campaigning last fall, and by discussions with Director Mertz and the team she has put in place at ODNR,” said Heusinkveld. “We’re counting on them to provide the leadership necessary to help us solve this issue.
“We fully recognize this problem didn’t develop overnight, and it certainly wasn’t of Gov. DeWine’s making, but it is a challenge that will require bold leadership to solve. Our groups are ready to work with the legislature and the DeWine administration to chart a path forward,” continued Heusinkveld. “It is essential to the future of hunting, fishing, trapping and conservation that we retain the AEP property, while addressing the other funding challenges that impact quality hunting and fishing opportunities.”
- The state hasn't had an increase in 15 years.
- Funds are needed to purchase the AEP lands.
- Come discuss this topic at the legislative reception - https://www.sportsmensalliance.org/news/join-us-2019-sportsmens-alliance-legislative-reception/
From the Sportsmen's Alliance website:
A coalition of Ohio’s premier hunting, fishing and trapping organizations are calling on Ohio’s new governor, Mike DeWine, and the Ohio General Assembly to address a long-ignored funding shortfall that has prevented the Ohio Department of Natural Resources – Division of Wildlife from addressing access, habitat and facilities issues, which has now become a full-blown crisis.
The Division of Wildlife, which is nearly fully funded by Ohio sportsmen has not had a resident license fee increase since 2004, the longest stretch in its history. The 15-year span without an increase has caused the Division of Wildlife to fall badly behind the funding curve, jeopardizing projects that improve habitat, hunter access, boating access, target shooting ranges and dam repair. The agency is also short 25 wildlife officers due to a lack of funds for cadet classes and staffing.
Worse, the state has not been able to put together a comprehensive funding package to retain American Electric Power’s ReCreation lands. Four years ago, AEP announced its intent to sell the 60,000-acre property (located in Guernsey, Morgan, Muskingum, and Noble Counties). This land has been open to the public for decades for hunting, fishing, trapping and other recreational activities. The cash-strapped Division of Wildlife has not been able to make a substantial purchase of the available lands, which represent 10 percent of all available property open to the public in Ohio.
Sportsmen’s groups, including the Sportsmen’s Alliance, began raising these issues more than six years ago, when a simple hunting and fishing license increase could have addressed most of the problem.
“The declining level of service to hunters, anglers and trappers is unacceptable, and the loss of these lands would be absolutely devastating,” said Evan Heusinkveld, president of the Sportsmen’s Alliance, which is coordinating the Protect What’s Right Coalition to address the funding crisis. “Sportsmen and women have been willing to support a modest increase in hunting and fishing fees to ensure quality hunting, fishing and trapping, and the habitat that sustains abundant fish and wildlife. Today however, the problem is far too large to solve with a simple fee increase. We’re counting on Gov. DeWine and the legislature to work with us to craft a comprehensive solution.”
In addition to the Sportsmen’s Alliance, the coalition of concerned organizations include Buckeye Firearms Association, Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation-OH Chapter, Ohio Conservation Federation, Ohio State Trappers Association, Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever, Safari Club International-Central Ohio, and many local conservation clubs representing tens of thousands of Ohio sportsmen and women. The coalition has been working for more than a year to prepare for this effort. After years of seeing these issues ignored, they’ve been encouraged by dialogue with Gov. DeWine and his team.
“We have been encouraged by Gov. DeWine’s willingness to hear our concerns as he was campaigning last fall, and by discussions with Director Mertz and the team she has put in place at ODNR,” said Heusinkveld. “We’re counting on them to provide the leadership necessary to help us solve this issue.
“We fully recognize this problem didn’t develop overnight, and it certainly wasn’t of Gov. DeWine’s making, but it is a challenge that will require bold leadership to solve. Our groups are ready to work with the legislature and the DeWine administration to chart a path forward,” continued Heusinkveld. “It is essential to the future of hunting, fishing, trapping and conservation that we retain the AEP property, while addressing the other funding challenges that impact quality hunting and fishing opportunities.”
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Still makes me wonder how much of this is due to their own doing by putting sportsmen last and the profits of insurance companies first. The $9 for every antlerless tag that was lost by wanting to reduce the herd I'm sure would have been nice to have. The multitude of people who have quit hunting and don't buy licenses due to the low numbers which Tonk knew would happen. The number of $24 dollar tags that they aren't selling now due to the population being lower today then back when it was high. I knew they would eventually try to mitigate the loss of revenue caused by their own actions on the backs of the very people they gave a back seat to in the first place.
I don't agree with it an never will, they should have put sportsmen first and concentrated on providing a better product, instead of the dimished one they now have and want to charge us more for. As I said. Maybe they can go ask Nationwide, State farm, of the farm union for a donation. After all, it was they who enjoyed the profit protection and saved hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the ODNRs actions. They are the ones who continue to save millions per year as a result of it. Yet here we are where hunters are left to pay the bills and make up for the losses.
Mark my words, they're going to raise prices and then a short time later they'll limit tags to certain areas in an attempt to force more tag purchases. If you can't get more hunters to buy tags then force the hunters you do have to buy more tags themselves.
I don't agree with it an never will, they should have put sportsmen first and concentrated on providing a better product, instead of the dimished one they now have and want to charge us more for. As I said. Maybe they can go ask Nationwide, State farm, of the farm union for a donation. After all, it was they who enjoyed the profit protection and saved hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the ODNRs actions. They are the ones who continue to save millions per year as a result of it. Yet here we are where hunters are left to pay the bills and make up for the losses.
Mark my words, they're going to raise prices and then a short time later they'll limit tags to certain areas in an attempt to force more tag purchases. If you can't get more hunters to buy tags then force the hunters you do have to buy more tags themselves.
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I would say that the non-diehards aren't the ones leasing land anyway. More than likely you only put up with their existence about 3 days per year. They actually make up quite a bit of the license sales and there money is vitally important. In addition if hunters want political pull in this state or any other we do need numbers.
I have to disagree on this as well. We shouldn't be excluding non-hunters. As hunter numbers drop we need all the support that we can get. I would rather have signs up that say that the lands were bought and paid for my hunter money. Please be courteous and enjoy your visit. Hunters excluding non-hunters is just going to hurt us down the road.
If you try to exclude non-hunters, I think it would just start a political shitstorm that hunters would not win and we would end up losing.
I will add that I understand your frustration, but just trying to explain my reasoning for feeling the way that I do.
tracker 6
Junior Member
Sgt Fury
Sgt. Spellchecker
I also like the sign idea. It educates the nonhunters who use the land that it was bought by monies generated by hunters.
twireman
Senior Member
I know how the state could make some real money down here. Clearcut some select areas in Tar Hollow, Scioto Trail , Zaleski, Shawnee that will actually make some cover for deer and other game. Would actually make the hunting worth a damn. Tar Hollow is way overmature IMO. I’d hate to see the amount of cash they could produce outta them forests. Habitat improvement.
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Nah, they would rather name it Jesse Owen and never mention hunters in the press release.
@Curran maybe you can elaborate. It is my understanding we are (or were) close to losing a federal match on funding thru the Pitt-Robertson Act (may have screwed the names up). Basically the state comes up with so much money and the fed matched? I believe this is how it worked. Due to the Kasich administration appointees there were departments ran into the ground and desperate for money. This is what I was reading. It was an opinion of someone. I just don't know how much was accurate and how much was opinion.
Couldn't agree more. Forrest management has been lacking for years, and without quality habitat for wildlife, well... there's a lack of wildlife.
@hickslawns yes and no. What the past administration would have like to do was get access to wildlife dollars for things outside of wildlife. PR dollars are marked for wildlife and how the state qualifies for PR dollars is through license sales. I have to run at the moment, but I'll explain further later... Sorry to leave you hanging!
I couldn’t agree more, but with the tree huggers out there, would the DNR put forth the effort too actually do this? You know they’d have a fight on their hands as soon as it was announced.....
at1010
*Supporting Member*
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I agree with this. I grew up hunting salt fork. I seem to always remember clear cuts and even burns as a kid back in through some of my favorite spots. Not if I dreamed that but seems it doesn’t happen anymore?
One thing I might mention and not sure that it has been brought up. Inflation.
Inflation alone has been at 2% on the dollar compounded annually for the last 15 years, that puts you at around 31 bucks for a deer tag. I think an increase just for that reason is justified. Idk about what everyone does but I know in my line of work we have to increase prices to cover costs, we are for profit business so it’s slightly different when talking about bottom line profitability. Worth noting non the less
Since we’re talking a little bit about Pittman Robertson, here is an excellent video explaining what it is, how it came about and how it is related to state agency funding.
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I don't disagree with inflation but how many 15 dollar tags were sold to the tune of a $9 loss per tag? If you go from 240k tags filled per year to 185k tags filled per year that's a loss right there of 1.3 million dollars per year just in tags filled. How many people have quit hunting between 2008 and today that nolonger purchase a license and tag?
If the DNR concentrated on providing a better product to hunters and maintained the 2008 numbers then I have no doubt the 4.3 million they're trying to get today by increasing prices wouldn't be a problem, even if prices remained the same. Yet they decided to reduce their revenue stream and protect the profits of billion dollar corporations.
At the end of the day they created a loss of revinue by diminishing their product, and now expect the consumer to make up the difference.
We could equate this to a farmer deciding not to plant 40 acres of his 100 acre field and expecting the bin to increase his price per bushel so that he maintains his 100 acre revenue.
at1010
*Supporting Member*
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Joe I’ve always respected you and clearly your a very intelligent guy.
I am not arguing the ODNR has/has not taken the best steps to produce the best overall hunting experience. However, assuming that the drop in tags sold due to decrease in deer seems like a stretch to me (unless there’s study - I am unaware of -that proves this theory?).
So if the ODNR could make the change overnight that the deee heard was back up to where it was in the year 2000 - would you guarantee the sales of tags would increase to make up the difference?
I think that there are numerous reasons for lower tag sales and I bet we’d all be surprised to see how many people “quit” hunting simply due to the “lack” of deer. I see hunters trying new spots, trying to lease, etc. I don’t see hunters quitting hunting due to lower numbers and I really think that this increase will have marginal impact on overall sales.
This is just my opinion. Maybe I’m a jackass. Hahahah
AT
I dont see it as being the DNR making guys quit. It's that the older folks are aging out of it and younger generations are not picking it up to replace these numbers. They know that they're going to have less hunter recruitment as family values and cultures change through the generations. So yes, this loss in revenue has to be shouldered somewhere.
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I don't have all of the numbers in front of me but there's no doubt that for every 15 dollar tag sold they took a 9 dollar loss. For every deer not shot today due to the lower population they took a $24 loss.
In 2007 the last season before they started the reduction efforts 232k deer were harvested, last year the season total was 172k. That's a loss of 60k tags today vs then which equates to a 1.4 million dollar loss year over year. That can be directly contributed to them reducing the population. And that's just the successful hunters and doesn't take in to consideration the tags purchased but went unused. The success rate has traditionally been about 30% tags sold to tags filled. So that 1.4 million dollar loss could potentially be a 4.6 million dollar loss year over year.
Per USFW Ohio sold 420k hunting licenses in 2007 and 390k last year. That's a loss of 30k licensed hunters. Best case from a revenue standpoint would be if if all those were residents, if so that's still a $570k loss.
There's no doubt that their reduction efforts also lead to a loss in revenue. Instead of providing a better product to their consumers who pay the bills, they reduced it and now want those same consumers to make up for it. All the while multi-billion dollar corporations enjoy tens of millions in profit savings each year.
In 2007 there were 26k deer vehicle accidents in Ohio, in 2018 there were 18k. That's a 30% drop in accidents and unless the deer somehow got smarter that means it's also at least a 30% reduction in the deer population. State farm states that the average deer vehicle accident costs $4,300 per instance, that 8,000 feewer accidents a year saves Ohio Insurance companies over $34 million bucks a year. Thats pure profit they get to retain instead of paying out. But it's hunters who are now being asked to foot the bill because our DNR decimated their own revenue stream to.protect the profits of private corporations.
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at1010
*Supporting Member*
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Great stuff joe.
I personally don’t think you can use harvest data to prove this point in reduced/loss revenue. One could simply use that same data to argue that the check system isn’t efficient because that 30% is now not checking deer in- possible stretch but you get my point.
As for the 15 dollar doe tag, I believe the ODNR would argue that was sold like an impulse purchase at a store. I would imagine that many hunters who would only buy one tag, now bought 1 tag and the 15 dollar tag so they could harvest another deer(spin this way it could be used to show increased revenue). Again - I don’t think you can directly correlate that loss against the standard cost - assuming the majority of those tags were sold alongside a 24 dollar tag. I do think you could use that number for a loss but only against the number of 15 dollar tags sold without the accompaniment of a standard 24 tag, to accurately do this one would need to have an idea of how many of those hunters buying the 15 dollar tag only wouldn’t have bought that tag if it was 24 - again could be spun to show positive revenue increase. Basically arguing “we can’t sell a second doe tag at 24 but we can at 15, hence we are getting money we wouldn’t get regardless”.
I do believe you can use the tags sold number to estimate reduced revenue stream. The issue I have with this, not enough data.
Initially that 500K loss seems outrageous but do we know what the standard deviation is in tags sales say over a 10 year period?20 year period? How about across multiple states? When looking at that large of a number of tags sold, I could easily see how you would have a 200-600k swing, just based on weather alone- forecast says rain all week of gun, less tags sold.
We know that hunter numbers are declining as well. Since early 2000s there was a lot of guys who were W2 Vets still hunting, who now unfortunately are not - for example.
I am not pro one side or another. I think you bring up fantastic points. I just to try to evaluate from multiple points of view. Hopefully adding some value to this thread.
To me it seems like:
Tag sales are decreasing - due to less hunters, possibly due to less deer and frustrated hunters, etc.
inflation over 15 years justifies small increase
Slight increase will more then cover inflation and reduced tag sales. Which if funds are used correctly will results in a better product for the hunters and fisherman of Ohio( that’s another debate).
Great discussion. Happy Sunday all!
AT