[Nj_federation_alert] Star Ledger Coverage

[ap.maurosr at verizon.net]

A special thanks to Fred Aun (Star Ledger) for much needed coverage on an important issue. Also thanks to Rob Winkle for his insights and commentary. Rob is the NJOA Natural Resource Director.

Ant
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 Sunday, February 24, 2008 
BY FRED J. AUN
For the Star-Ledger 
A number of outdoors-related groups have joined forces to urge Gov. Jon Corzine and the state Legislature to spare the Division of Fish and Wildlife when they take pruning shears to the state budget. 

The New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Coalition has among its members representatives from the N.J. Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, the Conserve Wildlife Foundation, the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance and others. Members joined last Wednesday at the State House in Trenton to make their point: That Fish and Wildlife -- already barely surviving -- should not be part of any plan to cure the state's fiscal problem with budget chops. 


  "What we are trying to do is get out in front of the governor's budget cuts," said Rob Winkel, natural resource director for the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance. "We asked, basically, that the funding that's been provided to Fish and Wildlife remain constant from last year. Actually we asked for some additional money." 

The governor has not officially proposed cutting the division's budget, but state officials say no line-item is safe from consideration. 

New Jersey Outdoor Alliance Chairman Anthony Mauro said Fish and Wildlife shouldn't be considered because it is one of the few agencies that are substantially self-sufficient. Up until several years ago, the division -- which gets most of its operating revenue from selling fishing and hunting licenses and from earmarked federal excise taxes on sporting goods sales -- took no money from the state budget. A decline in license sales, combined with increased operating costs, forced the division to give up some of that autonomy about two years ago. It now gets about $4.2 million from state coffers. 

"When you have an entity that can fund itself or, from a business standpoint, is profitable, you don't want to harm its profitability by going in and slashing everything," said Mauro. "The Division of Fish and Wildlife ... brings in its own revenue, which helps to make it self-sustaining to a large degree." 

Winkel, a former chief of the division's bureau of law enforcement, noted that outdoors activities made possible by the division are estimated to bring $3.9 billion annually to the state's economy. Many businesses rely on patronage from hunters, anglers, trappers and others. 

At the Wednesday rally, the Coalition asked state leaders to provide $9.27 million in annual appropriations for the division. That figure includes $3.4 million for the marine fisheries program, $850,000 for the black bear program, $823,815 for the State Wildlife Grants Program and $4.2 million for the inland fish and wildlife program. 

Winkel points to the dire situation facing the division's marine fisheries arm, calling it "one of the greatest examples of New Jersey failing to meet its obligations." He said New Jersey spends less on its marine fisheries management than all but one of the 14 Atlantic Coast states even though the value of marine species harvested in New Jersey ranks third among the 14 states. 

On the freshwater fisheries side, the division has canceled the fishing derbies it conducted each year for children. Division director Dave Chanda said the cuts were necessitated by a hiring freeze that made it impossible for him to adequately staff the division's warmwater fish hatchery in Hackettstown, which provided the fish for the derbies. 

Winkel said the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Coalition has yet to meet with Corzine and does not know whether the governor is even considering cutting the division's funding. The division is within the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). 

"The rumor is the DEP's overall budget is going to get cut pretty severely," said Winkel. He said DEP commissioner Lisa Jackson is "going to have to decide what divisions are going to absorb it. They usually spread out the pain. If the division gets cut 20 percent, it can't take that kind of a cut and remain effective. It already has such a small staff. They've always been a bare-bones operation." 






Anthony P. Mauro, Sr.
Chairman, New Jersey Outdoor Alliance http://www.njoutdooralliance.org