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A Taxing Situation Hunters have been "paying their own way" for the past 65 years.
STORY BY PAUL WILLMS A young married couple from Decatur tried dove hunting for the first time at Sangchris State Park this past September. A father from the Quad Cities introduced his son to archery deer hunting at the Mautino Fish and Wildlife Area in October. A couple of lifelong friends from Champaign spent a November morning hunting pheasants at Clinton Lake State Recreation Area. A dad from Carbondale watched his daughter bag her first goose at Rend Lake Fish and Wildlife Area in December. Vignettes like these take place every day of the fall and winter at 64 federal aid-funded public hunting areas throughout Illinois. There are close to 140,000 hunter trips taken on Illinois public hunting lands annually, resulting in thousands of doves, rabbits, pheasants, quail, deer, turkey, squirrels and all kinds of waterfowl being harvested. The purpose of this story isn't to tell you about those hunters or their hunting trips, but rather to make you aware that these hunting areas exist, tell you how they came about, how they were developed and how they are funded. We also want to mark a couple of milestones—the 65th anniversary of the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid Program and the 40th anniversary of the Statewide Public Lands Wildlife Habitat Development Project, better known as the W-76-D program in Illinois. The former—the PR Act—has resulted in the expenditure of more than $70 million in Illinois by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and nearly $25 million by the State of Illinois. These dollars have been used for numerous land purchases, wildlife research projects, habitat and facility access projects and also have footed the bill to provide instructional materials to educate nearly 250,000 students in the Illinois Hunter Safety Education program. The latter—the statewide Public Lands Wildlife Habitat Develop-
ment Project—has been one of Illinois' longest-running federal aid programs, providing the funding for producing wildlife habitat on public lands, developing educational and model management sites and providing facility access areas and recreational opportunities for the past four decades. That's a taste of what the Pittman-Robertson Act has done. But the most unique aspect of the program is that it's the result of a tax. Not a tax on the general public, but an excise tax levied on sporting equipment—firearms, ammunition and archery equipment—used by hunters, target shooters and others. Perhaps just as unique is the fact that this was a tax the hunters asked for, even though it meant the cost of their sporting arms and ammunition would be increased. But let's go back to the beginning. During the 1930s, drought, panic and poverty spread across much of America. Along with the dust bowl era and family farm hardships, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. At the same time, wildlife habitat was being destroyed at an alarming rate, and there was widespread poaching resulting from these bad economic times. There was tremendous pressure being placed on our country's wildlife resources. The middle of the depression might seem like a rather strange time for the birth of a program to tax sportsmen to protect and provide wildlife and wildlife habitat. But it happened. Two lawmakers, Sen. Key Pittman of Nevada and Rep. A. Willis Robertson of Virginia, advanced through Congress what came to be known as the Pittman-Robertson legislation. The legislation, the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937, is a matching grant program that was established to assist states by cost-share funding for land acquisition, habitat development for birds and mammals, and to conduct research to assist in wildlife restoration. The Act became national law in September 1937 and required states to submit grant proposals, which after review, would be funded at a 75 percent rate by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with states paying the remaining 25 percent. The unique aspect of the PR Act is its funding. Dollars come from excise taxes included in the price of sporting equipment and ammunition. It breaks down this way: • 11 percent on sporting arms and ammunition. • 10 percent on handguns and ammunition (initiated in 1970). • 11 percent on archery equipment (initiated in 1971). The funds are collected by the U.S. Treasury and deposited into the USFWS budget, to be apportioned to states and territories using a formula related to land area and the number of hunting license holders. One-half of the dollars collected from taxes on handguns and archery equipment is apportioned to states for hunter safety programs. The first federal aid project in Illinois was initiated in 1939 to deter-
Wildlife Biologist Tom Micetich inspects a sunflower field that was planted at a hunting area in southern Illinois. mine annual fur harvest in Illinois and revenues derived from license sales. The project, titled "Illinois Fur Animal Resource Survey," cost $2,720. Since then, research has been conducted on waterfowl, upland and forest wildlife, habitat has been established, and about 35,000 acres of land throughout the state has been acquired. The dollars spent on these projects tend to be returned in outside revenue. Habitat development projects on the state's major waterfowl management sites in southern Illinois are responsible for a multi-million dollar goose hunting industry. Funding from the program has been used in the return of the white-tailed deer and eastern wild turkey to Illinois, each of which results in millions of dollars being spent in the state. There currently are 64 state-managed sites, comprising nearly 162,000 acres of public land, that are involved with PR habitat development or maintenance projects. These include the development of wetlands, tree plantings, timber stand improvements, placement of nesting structures, vegetation manipulation, water level management and the development of food, grasses and legumes. Here are two examples of how successful this program has been: DNR's sunflower field management program for dove hunting, which is funded in part with PR dollars, provides thousands of hunter use days throughout the state. Similarly, PR dollars fund four major waterfowl management sites—Carlyle Lake, Rend Lake, Lake Shelbyville and Sanganois—that result in nearly 19 million waterfowl use-days, and from 45,000 to 50,000 hunter use-days each year. District wildlife biologists work with land managers at state sites to develop custom wildlife management programs for the sites. They analyze each area, identifying any wildlife essentials that might be lacking or in short supply, such as food, water, nest cover or escape and loafing cover. They then target those deficiencies using dollars through the W-76-D habitat development project. Keep in mind, too, that good wildlife management practices target both hunted and non-hunted wildlife species. Food, water and cover that are provided for game species are used by many species of non-game wildlife. Sites also serve as model demonstration areas for use by educational institutions, other public land managers and private landowners. Dollars also can be used to help maintain trails and roads, parking lots, wildlife observation areas, duck blinds, water control structures, bridges, water pumps, or to manage hunting programs that are included in the overall operation plan. Several DNR sites have been involved with the project for more than 20 years, and management practices will continue to enhance wildlife habitat. Management activities will continue to benefit a wide spectrum of wildlife resources found on these specific public land sites. The added benefit of providing recreational opportunities, such as hunting, wildlife observation and photography, on project sites is a real bonus to Illinois citizenry. To date, the PR Act has generated more than $3.2 billion since its inception, all due to the foresight and perseverance of a few individuals to preserve and protect America's wildlife, and sportsmen's willingness to tax themselves to ensure the fund would have the financial strength to get the job done. One has to wonder what the landscape and wildlife here in Illinois and throughout the nation would have been without such a program.
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