DNREC looks at saltwater fishing licenses

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

Representatives from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) explained the proposed license, and increased prices for other hunting and fishing licenses.

According to DNREC’s Greg Moore (Fish & Wildlife), the department managed to hold license fees flat for 20 years, using “soft funding” to support their budget. But those sources were dried up and depleted, he said.

“We’re trying to establish a stable funding source,” Moore explained. “With the increasing cost of doing business, we’re near or exceeding our revenues. We’re within a few years of, essentially, being in the red.”

Currently, hunting licenses cost Delaware residents $12.50 — that would double, to $25. But as Moore pointed out, they hadn’t changed since 1985, and simply calculating 3-percent annual growth for inflation, that would have grown to nearly $23 by now.

Since 1975, Fish & Wildlife has doubled the number of duck blinds and deer stands it maintains, and acreage in wildlife management has more than tripled, he continued. Yet despite the fact that the division provided more services, Moore said they employ the same number of field personnel today that they did 30 years ago — just 22 employees.

From Moore’s proposal, “Personnel and utility/energy costs have risen to comprise almost our entire budget, leaving very little operational money.”

And the number of people out hunting is on the decline — down by almost 10,000 hunters since 1975, Moore said.

According to the proposal, the division would have to consider cutting back on services or personnel if revenues continue to decline. The list of possible cost-saving measures included:

• Dismissal of contractual district employees (piping plover project, non-game research technicians);

• Dismissal of seasonal employees (check-station operators, grounds maintenance, Ommelanden Shooting Range officers and wildlife research technicians);

• Reduction in invasive upland and aquatic plant species control (including DNREC’s macroalgae harvester program);

• Elimination of wildlife surveys important to monitoring resident and migratory wildlife species; and

• Reduction in managed hunts and other wildlife recreational use, and scaling back of area maintenance.

Again, hunting license fees for Delawareans would double, to $25.

The division has proposed several new fees, including a Public Lands Access Fee ($10) that generated perhaps the most opposition. There would also be a $100 fee for a new Delaware Guide License ($300 for non-resident hunting guides), and a $5 Junior License ($50 for non-resident juniors).

Primarily, Moore said any new funding sources could leverage additional federal matching funds.

According to Fish & Wildlife’s Roy Miller, Delaware has never had to give up federal funding due to an inability to offer up the one-third match. “We’re one of the few states that’s never reverted,” he pointed out. But this could be an important year for that federal funding — Miller said the division would need to come up with about $1.2 million to garner the proffered $3.6 million in federal funds.

Proposed projects included:

• New observation towers for wildlife viewing;

• Enhanced habitat management and restoration of cottontail rabbit and bobwhite quail;

• New research for turkey management and possibly additional stockings;

• Delmarva fox squirrel restoration, in pursuit of delisting as an endangered species;

• Development of wildlife viewing guide, interpretive trails and enhanced wildlife viewing opportunities;

• Improved management of forest tracts, through select cuts and reforestation;

• New deer stands and duck blinds, for both disabled and traditional users;

• Enhanced wetland management – installation of new water control structures and development of shallow-water wetlands;

• More habitat management programs for private lands;

• Better wildlife disease analysis and response;

• Assistance for nuisance animal problems, like resident Canada geese;

• Infrastructure needs — equipment replacement;

• Additional land purchases; and

• Enhanced wildlife education and outreach programs.

But one of the outdoorsmen in attendance, Joe Maramonte, chafed that hunters seemed to pay the bill for a lot of programs that primarily benefited “non-consumptive” users, like birders.

Moore said the state was trying to capture some of the money non-consumptive users spent in the surrounding communities — through the $10 Public Land Access Fee. However, hunters don’t just generate revenue by buying licenses — they also support Fish & Wildlife through excise fees levied on guns, ammunition and other hunting gear (via the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration, or Pittman-Robertson, Act).

And Maramonte said he wasn’t always happy with the fact that hunters’ money was being used to provide wildlife education that wasn’t always fair to hunters, or even maligned them. “A lot of that education gets away from teaching people where their cellophane-wrapped meat and fish came from,” Maramonte stated.

Miller, on the fisheries side of Fish & Wildlife, explained his section and the proposed new fishing licenses. And one of Miller’s first rationales for raising additional revenues from recreational anglers was that, as things stood, some of the fees raised by the hunters were being used to pay for operations on the fisheries side.

Anglers pay excise taxes on fishing tackle and fuel used in boats, etc. (via the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration, or Wallop-Breaux, Act — anglers’ equivalent of Pittman-Robertson).

Miller noted a proposed $8.50 license fee — this would be for fresh or saltwater fishing, and the fee would apply to crabbing and clam digging as well. And it would be over and above tag fees for beach access via four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Non-residents would pay $20 for the fresh/saltwater fishing license, but customers going out on charter and head boats wouldn’t need individual licenses. License fees for charter guides would be set at $150, and $300 for the head boats.

Without additional funds, Miller suggested the division might have to close down some of Delaware’s marine fisheries, due to an inability to perform required monitoring of species for compliance with federal Fisheries Management Programs.

But some anglers in attendance voiced concerns over the division’s list of critical, underfunded development needs — especially the freshwater projects on the list.

Although it went unmentioned, most of the projects on the list were also located outside, or nearly outside, Sussex County.

The list included: (1) replacement of the Seventh Street boat ramp, in Wilmington; (2) repair of the bulkhead in front of the Bowers Beach Coast Guard station, near Dover; (3) repairs at the Cedar Creek Access Area, northeast of Milford; (4) modifications to the Augustine Beach Breakwater, south of Delaware City; and (5) bulkhead replacement at Coursey and Griffith Ponds (Frederica and Harrington, respectively).

Lynn Herman, the division’s chief financial officer, said there was no question that the vast majority of Wallop-Breaux revenues came out of Sussex County. But he said the division had to spend fully 80 percent of all federal revenues on saltwater restoration projects.

Miller suggested new revenues might fund or support:

• A possible Atlantic Ocean fishing pier;

• Additional hours for surf fishing access at state parks;

• Increased marine and freshwater enforcement by reallocating boat registration fees back to enforcement (the division’s been using those fees to defray other operational costs);

• Installation of new fish passages – like “ladders” that make it possible for fish and eels to travel over dams;

• A fisheries habitat enhancement program in freshwater ponds;

• More fishing ponds on public lands;

• New stocking programs for special situations, like endangered species enhancement;

• Enhancement of the shad fishery on the Nanticoke River;

• Restored funding for (offshore) artificial reef development;

• Research on effects of fishing operations on marine habitat;

• Shellfish surveys in support of long-term management goals for blue crabs and hard clams; and

• Better marine angling surveys.

Representatives from the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) critiqued the division, but not the saltwater license per se. Rather, citing the list of proposed projects, RFA’s Bernie Pankowski said alliance members felt “reasonable apprehensions,” that the state would use funds inappropriately.

He suggested it would have been better if Fish & Wildlife had first asked the anglers where they wanted the money to go. And Pankowski wanted guarantees that the fees weren’t being increased unnecessarily.

\According to Herman, the state only manages a fee increase about once every 20 years and it has been 20 years since the last one. As Miller pointed out, this was just the starting point for the proposed increases – the division still needs to find a sponsor at the General Assembly, and state legislators would have the final say on the increases.