In response to recent outrageous gaffes by the Department of Fish and Game, several readers have asked me to re-post my column on how to solve the DFG’s perpetual foray into the abyss.
By Tom Stienstra
Excerpted in part from San Francisco Chronicle, December 8, 2002, Copyright © 2011 Hearst Communications Inc. Used by permission.
It’s time to clean out the Department of Fish and Game and its untouchable five-member commission — and not just the governor’s appointees who grovel daily at the trough. Turn the place upside down.
How can the DFG act without regard to the fishermen and hunters who pay the freight? The answer is simple: They do these things because they can. That’s how it is with the DFG.
It may be a pipe dream to think this would ever change, but here’s how one dreamer would begin: The name Department of Fish and Game would be junked, just like the latest politically appointed director and his cronies.
–A new era: A new Department of Fishing and Hunting would be created. Its sole purpose would be to improve fishing and hunting opportunities and communicate with the people who would be paying the freight. The entire DFG should be trimmed down, reorganized and renamed. The power to appoint the DFG director, deputies and commissioners should be taken away from the governor.
–How we pay for it: It would be funded independently of the state’s general fund, with money collected from the sale of fishing and hunting licenses, stamps, access fees, and federal excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment, and in some cases, a percentage of fuel taxes we spend to go fishing and hunting. In other words, we’re happy to pay our own way providing we get our money’s worth.
This can only be done through the initiative process. But in an era of budget deficits, the idea of a state department that pays its own way and asks for nothing from the general fund would have instant appeal across the state.
–Selecting a director: The power to appoint the leaders of the DFG and its commission should be given to a committee that consists of fishing and hunting organization leaders who are not paid by government. This new committee would conduct nationwide searches to uncover and hire the best fish and game management talent in the country to run the DFG and volunteer for the commission. The director would then serve a term that doesn’t run concurrent to the governor’s and would answer to this committee, not to the governor.
There’s more:
–Conservation programs: All conservation and biodiversity programs would be transferred to the environmental department within the Resources Agency, the Department of Conservation. This would include all biodiversity programs, endangered species, stream alteration permits, state wildlife lands, timber review, oil spill prevention, treatment of animals at pet stores, zoos and live-food animal markets, and the spread of invasive species.
–Game wardens: The current ratio is roughly one game warden in the field per 175,000 residents. That is why game wardens are forced to occasionally pool their talents on special enforcement projects. But that leaves vast areas with zero surveillance for weeks, and with it, rampant poaching and illegal wildlife activity. Another problem is that game wardens now do a lot of non-DFG work, like drug busts. As part of the new Department of Fishing and Hunting, the entire game warden would be transferred to the California Highway Patrol. They would create a new division within the CHP, and all CHP officers would be deputized as wardens, and then activities would be coordinated between them. That’s how they do it in Oregon.
–Fish and Game Commission: A commission independent of the governor and environmental organizations would set fishing and hunting laws, seasons and review permits.
–DFG hierarchy: An independent director and his staff would run a scaled-down department. It would be split into divisions for fishing, hunting, licenses, hatcheries, a new legal team, and a new public information division designed solely to help the public quickly get the answers it needs.
What would be left is a trimmed-down version of the DFG that would pay its own way. We’d have plenty of money for hatcheries and programs with the sole intent to provide more fish and wildlife across California.
For years, many conservation leaders have played I’ll-kiss-your-butt with the governor’s club to try to get what they need under the current setup, believing they have no other options.
Well, there are.
