I'm not going to sit here and act like a hunting license is a big burden. But your scenario is a false dichotomy. If hunting licenses went away tomorrow, they'd find another way to pay your salary. The government likes to use all these arbitrary partitions, but they can move money around with the stroke of a pen.
False. Without the sale of licenses and PR and DJ funds there would be no funding. We do not receive operating costs from the general fund and it would bankrupt the state if we relied on it. Have you not seen the recent legislation the last few years that tried to go after Conservation funding? The reason is because we are self sufficient as a department. The money we receive from licenses can not be used for anything other than its legally defined purpose, and politicians see that money, and want their share of it. The state government can not just stroke a pen and fund what we do.
