Ideas to help Wis get out of debt

[bullwinkle]

I was kicking around the current situation our state with a friend and it dawned on us they could make some money if they wanted. Here were some of our ideas:

1. Sell lifetime deer management permits for property owners of 40 acres or more. For $1000 - you don't have to register deer, can manage your property as you see fit and not have to buy any more license the rest of your life as long as you are hunting on this property.

2. Pull out 200 bear tags each year and charge $500/each - still use a lottery to sell these tags but use these tags to make money

3. Sell back some of the DNR land. I would be interested in a couple of tracks in Waupaca County and would be willing to pay top dollar. The state has some awesome property and since we are broke, sell some assets to get back in balance

4. Sell archery hunts for sturgeon while they are spawning - limit the tags so it does not hurt the population and make them $1000/each

5. Get rid of all the expense registering deer and put in a call in system.

6. Sell second buck tags (high price) and only after you shot a buck and a doe. Or just sell the second tag for $200

7. Sell wolf tags for any wolf below hyw 8 or 29. Charge $100 each

I am sure you guys could think of more ideas. It just dawned on me the potential for the state to capitalize on some of the assets it has and help get out of debt - kind of interesting thinking. Obviously the state has a lot of other resources besides wildlife they could tap into as well.

Just as long as they don't raise our taxes

[Dan Salmon]

I think the better option is to stop throwing good money after the bad.  But I'm a pretty simple person that way.  Exploitation of Natural Resources are what led to the American Game Management system in the first place.  I really don't think we need to go down that road again.

[Dan Salmon]

1. Sell lifetime deer management permits for property owners of 40 acres or more. For $1000 - you don't have to register deer, can manage your property as you see fit and not have to buy any more license the rest of your life as long as you are hunting on this property.

This could work, but the base line property size would need to be increased.  40 acres would allow for even more fragmentation of property and problems with neighbors and competition, not to mention a loss of revenue for the DNR.

2. Pull out 200 bear tags each year and charge $500/each - still use a lottery to sell these tags but use these tags to make money.

Are these garunteed kill tags?  I.e. you hunt until you kill a bear?  I'm not following how this would be a good thing?  For example:  I've finally saved enough preference points to draw a tag, but just my luck, I pulled the $500 tag while everyone else pays the standard amount?  This doesn't make sense to me.

3. Sell back some of the DNR land. I would be interested in a couple of tracks in Waupaca County and would be willing to pay top dollar. The state has some awesome property and since we are broke, sell some assets to get back in balance

Potentially a good idea, but probably would need to be near or at default before it would even be considered.  A better idea would be for the State to not pay 2x to 3x the local going rate for land, thus inflating all properties sold after the purchase of that property.

4. Sell archery hunts for sturgeon while they are spawning - limit the tags so it does not hurt the population and make them $1000/each.

I'll admit I don't know if this would be a draw or not.  It could be tried but may not be worth the cost of enforcement?

5. Get rid of all the expense registering deer and put in a call in system.

It wouldn't get rid of all the expense, but would save money.  Could also require a random number of callers to provide a jaw via mail or drop of point for aging etc. to help with SAK or population modeling.

6. Sell second buck tags (high price) and only after you shot a buck and a doe. Or just sell the second tag for $200.

I think this would go a long way to making making hunter perceptions of populations and opportunity for shooting a big buck much better, while making a higher doe harvest, if needed, more palatable to those same hunters.  Could also limit the number of 2nd Buck tags availability and price accordingly.

7. Sell wolf tags for any wolf below hyw 8 or 29. Charge $100 each

There will be some sort of season with tags available at some point.  But I agree, make it something that makes some money because of the scarcity of the resource and scarcity of the opportunity to hunt the species.

Maybe we should, as a State, impose a State Pittman-Robertson sales tax on sporting goods, ammunition, rifles, bows, crossbows, etc.  Nothing crazy, a fraction of a percent, but something that is marked only for use for Natural Resources funding.

[retch sweeny]

Spend far less and additional revenue streams will not be needed.

[Dan Salmon]

Retch, I agree. Simple and effective, yet elusive to enact because of self preservation interests of most politicians.