Conservation dollars in the United States go towards wildlife and fisheries management, outdoor recreation access, habitat improvement, and many other projects. Below is a broad overview of the different sources for conservation funding.
At the State level, wildlife management agency budgets rely heavily on the sales of hunting and fishing licenses, tags, permits, and stamps to fund their conservation work. The following is a breakdown of that income for FY2019 per the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service sites for hunting and fishing:
- Hunting licenses, tags, permits, and stamps: 35.9 million licenses, etc. sold raised an aggregate $896.5 million for U.S. States and territories
- Fishing licenses: 41.4 million licenses sold raised an aggregate $748.3 million for U.S. States and territories
In addition to the dollars that hunters and anglers spend on State-level hunting and fishing licenses, tags, or federal duck stamps, there are several other major funding sources at the Federal level that support conservation initiatives:
- The Farm Bill: provides incentives for private land owners to improve habitat, wetlands, and water quality on their property as well as consider public hunting and fishing access
- The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)**: LWCF dollars (funded by royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling, not taxpayers) help state and local governments protect natural areas, water resources, and important cultural heritage sites in the US with the goal to promote outdoor recreation opportunities for everyone
- The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (Pittman-Robertson Act): collects an 11% excise tax on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment, which is then redistributed to states to fund conservation projects
- The Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act (Dingell-Johnson Act): modeled after the Pittman-Robertson Act, the Dingell-Johnson Act collects an excise tax on fishing tackle and motorboat fuel to support fish population management, water access, and similar initiatives
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website:
Each year, nearly $200 million in hunters' federal excise taxes are distributed to State agencies to support wildlife management programs, the purchase of lands open to hunters, and hunter education and safety classes. Proceeds from the Federal Duck Stamp, a required purchase for migratory waterfowl hunters, have purchased more than five million acres of habitat for the refuge system (2005 statistics only); lands that support waterfowl and many other wildlife species, and are usually open to hunting.
In the US, State agencies (versus Federal ones) are responsible for most wildlife management responsibilities within their borders. These agencies monitor the health of both game and non-game populations, set season dates, and determine the number of tags available to hunters. They're often also responsible for land and water access programs, conservation law enforcement, and habitat improvement projects.
While each State agency has different budget sources, all of them rely to some extent on the fees collected from hunting and fishing licenses, tags, and permits. This money is required to stay within the department - not go into a State's general tax fund - if said State wants to qualify for other Federal-level conservation program dollars to supplement their budgets. Such programs make up another large portion of State budgets and include the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (Pittman-Robertson Act) and the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act (Dingell-Johnson Act) among others.
Some States, such as New Hampshire, receive very little funding from the General Fund. In FY2016 for example, only 2% of the department's $28 million budget was sourced from there, whereas 37% came from Federal programs and another 32% came from license sales1.
With such a large funding onus on hunters and anglers, it's interesting to look deeper into who pays what within those license fees. One split is how much residents and non-residents of a State contribute to the total dollars collected from hunting license sales. Residents naturally pay less for licenses, tags, permits, and stamps on a per-unit basis versus what non-residents pay. And, understandably, a higher percentage of total licenses in any State go to residents as it's generally easiest for folks to hunt where they live. However, there are 15 States where, in spite of non-residents buying a lower percentage of the number of licenses, actually contributed more total dollars into the system than residents did2. These states, with the percent of total license costs from non-residents generated from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services data, are:
| State | Non-Resident Contribution of Total License Costs |
|---|---|
| Colorado | 78.9% |
| Wyoming | 74.4% |
| Montana | 67.8% |
| Kansas | 66.9% |
| South Dakota | 66.1% |
| New Mexico | 65.2% |
| Alaska | 64.9% |
| Mississippi | 63.9% |
| North Dakota | 62.1% |
| Idaho | 60.5% |
| Arkansas | 58.3% |
| West Virginia | 54.5% |
| Alabama | 52.4% |
| Georgia | 52.0% |
| Nevada | 51.0% |
This table isn't meant to pit resident hunters against non-resident hunters. These States clearly offer a variety of game species and the necessary access to them such that a lot of non-residents are willing to pay for those opportunities - simple supply and demand. However, if agencies have budget shortfalls and turn to increases on license fees to plug the gap, at what point are prices too high? There's always someone out there who can afford it, but what's the threshold where hunting becomes less about "open access to all"3 and more "pay to play"?
While interesting, analyzing the resident and non-resident hunting contribution splits doesn't address the big-picture question of what do other user groups - hikers, rock climbers, bird watchers, mountain bikers, backcountry skiers - add to the pot?
There's a reason hunters and anglers carry so much of the funding weight: they are consumptive users. This means they are (usually) taking an animal or fish off the landscape. The concept that the dollars collected for this privilege later pay for conservation is what forms the basis of the U.S.'s "user pay, user benefit" conservation funding model. But should they have such a high percent of the funding onus - all outdoor user groups benefit from land and water access and habitat work, and the entire population benefits from clean air, water, and a healthy ecosystem that result from proper land stewardship.
Other outdoor user groups are generous in donating their time, money, or professional skills to non-profits and NGOs that support the work of wildlife management agencies. These organizations help fund land acquisitions, open access points for outdoor recreation opportunities, or perform habitat stewardship work - all work that helps enable State agencies with shoestring budgets to still accomplish their missions. However, this also introduces a mix of different ideals or agendas, potentially at odds with the mission of the State agency. It seems a better approach would be to create direct contributions from other user groups into the State agency funds so they can operate without having to rely on third parties.
A proposed "backpack tax" - which was a Federal-level excise tax on outdoor goods - came up a few years ago specifically to address this concern. Unfortunately, it fell through as many businesses in the outdoor industry opposed it. The industry argued that Congress should fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (which has only happened once in its existence) before it collects more taxes for conservation programs. A fair point, but unfortunately didn't help the funding situation for State agencies.
The question boils down to 'what is a fair way for other user groups to contribute'? And how can agencies better communicate how those new fees or taxes will benefit all users? Time will tell, but hopefully it doesn't take a crisis at an agency to spur change.
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife & Sport Fishing Restoration Program for historical license data
- Report: Financial Returns to Industry from the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration Program 2016 Survey
Notes:
1: See New Hampshire Fish & Game's FY2016 budget breakdown
2: The analysis supporting the table numbers can be found in the project's Jupyter notebook
3: See tenet 7 of the North American Model for Wildlife Conservation