Earlier this year the PA Game Commission attempted to limit access to the gamelands for a substantial part of the year by non-hunters for the nearly exclusive use of what is now a very small minority of Pennsylvania citizens – hunters. This move was based on the completely false assumption that hunters are the exclusive source of revenue for the Pennsylvania Game Commission and that the gamelands were purchased solely with funds from hunters.
Evaluating the 2014 PA Game Commission fiscal year statement in the February 2015 PA Game News, hunters are minority contributors and majority users of the game commission’s financial resources. The overall budget was $98,000,000. This was overspent by $7,000,000 for a total of $105,000,000. Of this budget only $27,000,000 came from hunters. More money came from natural resource exploitation, $32,000,000, than hunters and hunting related sources.
Another important factor when considering gamelands use is that a considerable amount of land and other resources were contributed by individuals, conservation organizations and other groups with the intention of continuing public access to these lands. Many if not most of these individuals and the members of these organizations are not and never were hunters. In this context it is especially important to realize that money spent on enhancing land for game species, especially deer, does not necessarily enhance it for non-game wildlife. Therefore, much of the money spent on habitat enhancement is not in alignment with the purpose of these land donations as it does not enhance non-game habitat or improve public access.
In a subsequent meeting this spring with hikers and other users of the gamelands hikers were called “secondary users” of the gamelands and related resources. Hunters were referred to as the “primary users.” The simple fact is that hunters by numbers who participate, numbers of hours spent in the gamelands and money contributed to the upkeep of the gamelands are easily secondary if not tertiary users when compared to hikers and naturalists. If volunteer hours for activities such as trail maintenance, education and habitat improvement are included, the comparison is even more heavily in favor of hikers and naturalists being the primary users of and contributors to the gamelands.
If the PA Game Commission had severely limited the amount of usage to the gamelands by hikers and other users, they would have had to either reduce or eliminate services for hunters to make up for the lost volunteer hours from hikers and other users. Volunteer trail maintainers like my wife and I would have quit maintaining trails in the gamelands, such as the Appalachian Trail. Money would have had to be found to pay staff to do what we do for free. The result would have been higher license, access and other user fees by hunters or more logging, fracking and similar destructive natural resource exploitation.
Richard Gardner lives in Upper Bern Township. His passions are ecology and history because with these we are able to understand our world, our place in it and our future.
