Want to change the regs? Avoid asking legislators

The best way to change wildlife rules is to hit up the Wildlife Commission, like it or not

The answer is that hunters and anglers get stuck with inflexible rules and compromises no one likes—not to mention the fact that the founders of this state sought specifically to keep politics out of wildlife management and wrote that into our constitution.

The question, as put to me by an administrator of one of the state’s busiest Facebook group pages for hunters and anglers, Chase Bagley of the Oklahoma Hunting and Fishing group, was this:

“If there was a group of people who wanted to see a hunting reg changed. Say 103.1k people. Would they have a better chance taking their votes and money to legislators to get it changed or going to the ODWC meeting and voicing their opinions on it?”

For argument’s sake we’ll accept the idea that 103,100 Facebook group members “and money” can be leveraged to ply legislators. To that I would advise the last thing this state needs is something like a hunting-and-fishing political action committee fueled by Facebook ideas and tossing piles of hunting and fishing regulation changes at the legislature each year.

Lord, help us all.

“It comes up almost every year, someone wants to pass a one-buck season law or something like that,” said Cory Jager, legislative liaison for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. “The main problem with that is once something like that is set in law it’s very hard to change.”

A couple of examples in the legislature now illustrate why using politics as a general means to “see a hunting reg changed” is a bad idea compared to being actively engaged with the messy management mix of biology, sociology and economics it takes for the Wildlife Department and Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission to maintain good wildlife policy. Yes, it takes a lot more than just “going to the ODWC meeting.”

The Constitution of the State of Oklahoma set a framework specifically to keep politics out of wildlife management. Title 29, the statutes of the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Code, are what lay that foundation—right down to defining what is “an animal” and what is “a commissioner.” Those rules are changed only through the legislature.

Oklahoma Administrative Code Section 800 (often called Title 800) is where the rubber meets the road on things like season dates, bag limits, methods and means, and how the department operates. Those rules are created through the department and the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission—with a check-and-balance requiring a sign-off by the legislature and the governor on each rule change. However, these rules do not prevent oversteps pushed through in Title 29—so we have regulations with a confusing mix of origins.

The Wildlife Department also works with constituents to propose legislation. In fact if your legislator wants to introduce a wildlife bill on your behalf they are wise to first contact the department. Nine times out of 10 it’s something people at the department have already debated or possibly proposed in years past. Also, a wildlife-related bill that starts off with a Wildlife Department endorsement has a better chance of passing.

Good idea or bad, bills fail or get passed up for myriad reasons. Legislators have a lot of irons in the fire and most are not educated about or care one lick about the details of hunting, trapping or falconry rules.

One case in point this year? Oklahoma’s squirrel season dates have been set in Title 29 at May 15 to January 31 of the following year for decades. Three years ago falconers approached the Wildlife Department to see about leaving it open year-round. There was no biological reason not to allow falconers to work their birds on squirrels when the leaves are off the trees and the weather is mild, but the department had to file a bill with the legislature on their behalf.

Now on its third run through the legislature, Jager said that rule change likely will be tied in with House Bill 1112, which removes provisions governing the hunting and trapping of furbearing animals from statute and returns that authority to the wildlife commission.

Not only did the situation involving squirrels change a few years back, but trappers also ran into issues with old, broad legal definitions of traps in statute that new technology suddenly made obsolete. But the department and commission couldn’t change things to help trappers either.

Finally, both these common-sense issues appear to be on the road to correction for people who purchase falconry and trapping licenses this year. Still no guarantees, but it looks that way—three years later.

“It’s not something people have really been opposed to, it’s just taken that long to get these things through the system,” Jager said.

Good idea or bad, bills fail or get passed up for myriad reasons. Legislators have a lot of irons in the fire and most are not educated about or care one lick about the details of hunting, trapping or falconry rules.

These delays have annoyed trappers and falconers, but imagine the potential damage of broadly setting lots of hunting or fishing bag limits or seasons in statute. A couple of bad weather years or a disease comes along and then what? We wait two or more years to adjust seasons and bag limits at the whim of legislators who don’t understand the biology and have other things—like the economy and schools—on their plates?

Title 800 administrative rules can be relatively quickly stayed or altered by emergency order until they can be officially changed in regulations.

One of the bill’s authors in committee Thursday actually said it was “unfortunate” that our state’s constitution gives licensing and fundraising authority to the wildlife department.

The other example this session is illustrated with countless requests from people last year for free or discounted hunting and fishing licenses during the Covid-19 shutdown. Wildlife couldn’t help people out because license fees are set in Title 29.

Coincidentally, three years ago the department hired a firm to do an in-depth study on its licensing structure and has been following those recommendations in new legislative proposals that would not only repair the situation mentioned above, make things simpler for users and potentially bring in more federal matching funds.

But it shouldn’t have taken an in-depth study to prove the system is clunky.

The idea that hunters and anglers have to propose a bill and work through legislative sessions just to adjust a license fee people find burdensome or to adjust a fee for inflation or for increased costs of operations is clearly burdensome.

House Bill 2214, which passed the House Wildlife Committee Thursday, would revamp the state’s licensing system and return the authority to set fees to the Wildlife Commission and the Title 800 process, but it was amended to do more before it passed.

In what appears to be a compromise effort from the start, the bill’s sponsors—who have both have for years pushed to limit the Wildlife Commission’s ability to purchase lands for public use—rolled language restricting lands purchases into the House version of the licensing bill.

It demands the Wildlife Department wait six months to pursue purchases of any land that comes up for sale and that anyone wanting to sell to the department wait as well. Sellers must first advertise the land at fair market value for six months, not just in a local newspaper but statewide if one committee member’s suggestion is adopted.

It’s a compromise the Wildlife Department is willing to accept that “doesn’t hurt us too much,” Jager said.

So, the upshot (and irony) of this is that for hunters and anglers to follow the advice of national experts and the third-party economics report they paid for that shows a better and simpler way to manage hunting and fishing license sales and prices (to match what was laid out in the constitution), they must sacrifice the power of our hunting and fishing license dollars to purchase wildlife lands to preserve and enjoy.

Instead the advantage for those purchases will be tipped in favor high-dollar hunting clubs, out-of-state recreational land buyers, the federal government or state parks, anyone but the Wildlife Commission.

One of the bill’s authors in committee Thursday actually said it was “unfortunate”our state’s constitution gives licensing and fundraising authority to the wildlife department.

So there you have it. Compromise no one likes—not to mention the fact that the founders of this state sought specifically to keep politics out of wildlife management and wrote that into our constitution.