During her 2011-2017 stint as Wisconsin DNR secretary, Cathy Stepp often preached that the agency must operate more like a private-sector business.
She also said Department of Natural Resources staff should treat hunters, anglers, park visitors and other license-buyers as valued customers.
And then Stepp proved herself more saboteur than secretary. She steadily distanced the DNR from those “customers,” the chief source of DNR funding. She forbid DNR biologists from testifying at legislative hearings unless invited by lawmakers, undercutting their public-servant responsibilities. She helped lawmakers shutter DNR offices, locking the agency’s doors and sending longtime regulars to stores or the internet to buy licenses and ask questions.
Stepp also removed university scientists from advisory panels, and let the Legislature ransack and remove the agency’s research and education bureaus in 2015. And to further instill public ignorance, she axed the agency’s communications staff at regional offices while gutting and overloading the Madison staff to the point of dysfunction. And then she ignored the throngs of ungrateful customers who hissed on endless hold, courtesy of the agency’s help line.
Eventually, her legacy fixed, Stepp took a job with the federal government, leaving the mess for others to tackle, and perhaps worsen. In other words, Stepp wasn’t a business expert striving to transform the DNR. She more resembled a private-equity amateur blundering toward bankruptcy.
Much like homeowners, savvy leaders make investments, updates and maintenance to their businesses. They also know repairs and remodeling eventually require everyone to stop stripping and tearing, and start installing and painting. Unfortunately, “small-government” clones just keep cutting until service falters or fails. Then they shout, “See, government doesn’t work!”
But managing and maximizing Wisconsin’s natural resources and outdoor recreation can’t be done on the cheap or by accident. Neither can those conservation tasks rely on funding sources our lawmakers have ignored throughout this new century: hunting and fishing license sales.
The sad, inescapable reality is that hunting and fishing are in slow decline, and no one knows when or where participation rates will level off. One thing is certain, however: Twelve years after lawmakers created low-cost “first-time buyer” licenses for new or returning hunters and anglers, we haven’t discounted our way back to conservation prosperity.
Meanwhile, lawmakers have ignored efforts by the Wisconsin Conservation Congress and other hunting/fishing organizations to make up for those lost revenues by increasing license fees and/or eliminating the discounts. Wisconsin, in fact, hasn’t raised the price of its hunting, fishing and trapping licenses for nearly two decades; 2005, to be exact.
That is not good business, especially when you consider that Wisconsin’s outdoor recreation is more vital to its citizenry and Wisconsin’s economy than our professional sports franchises. The Green Bay Packers aren’t so foolish. The nation’s only publicly owned franchise has raised ticket prices for Lambeau Field 13 times since 2006, increasing the average cost from $58.39 in 2006 to $141 in 2023, a 142% jump.
Sure, lawmakers say they must first study how the DNR is spending its money.
Pfft. When haven’t they said that? Yes, that’s their prerogative, but they aren’t serious, they aren’t trained analysts, and they’re more prone to partisanship than professional objectivity.
And let’s not forget they’re the ones who discounted hunting and fishing licenses for lapsed or first-time buyers, even though they had no evidence it would boost sales. That move leaves money on the table with every sale, given that few first-time buyers even knew they were eligible for the discounts.
At the least, lawmakers should acknowledge that freezing license fees at 2005 prices did nothing to increase hunting and fishing participation. Besides, sticking by antiquated prices and discounting already-low fees sends the wrong message. It implies Wisconsin’s natural resources and outdoor recreation are second-rate; that they deserve their place in the state’s discount bin.
You won’t find the Wisconsin patron license there. Besides being convenient, the $165 patron license has no discount price, no matter a buyer’s age or license-purchasing history. Hunters and anglers support that full fee, which they demonstrated in April by soundly rejecting a $130 price for seniors. The proposal lost by a 79-21 percentage vote.
Talk about a misguided idea. Patron license sales have climbed steadily since bottoming out at 44,049 in 2012, with the DNR selling 64,801 of them in 2023. Lawmakers, take note: That’s a 47% increase over 11 years.
Lawmakers should also realize that hunters and anglers aren’t shy about paying premium prices for quality gear. Not everyone spends $675 for an elite fishing pole, but you can’t buy one from St. Croix Rods for less than $105 on its website. Likewise, not every bowhunter will pay $1,400 for a Mathews Lift 33 compound bow. Still, companies wouldn’t sell high-end bows at that price if folks weren’t buying them, even when those bows don’t include sights, a rest or quiver.
It’s time lawmakers act like adults and respect their electorate. If folks understand the challenge, they’ll rise to meet it. A report released Aug. 12 by the Wisconsin Policy Forum notes, for example, that although hunting and fishing license sales peaked in 2020 as people rushed outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic, those sales have since retreated.
Hunting license sales in 2023 were 0.1% below total sales in 2019, while fishing license sales are only 0.5% higher than in 2019. Further, long-term hunting recruitment keeps slipping. Although sales of first-time gun-deer licenses in 2023 were 6.3% ahead of 2019 sales, they still trailed annual sales from 2012 through 2017.
Meanwhile, the number of people visiting Wisconsin’s state parks to hike, camp, cycle, swim, paddle and birdwatch remain robust. Those numbers haven’t fallen to pre-pandemic levels. Sales of state-park stickers in 2023 were nearly 50% higher than in 2019, with sales in 2022 nearly equaling those in 2020, while sales in 2021 and 2023 exceeded 2020’s.
It would be great if hunting and fishing still matched the numbers gained from COVID-19’s temporary bump. But that seems impossible, no matter how hard we try to take more kids and women hunting and fishing.
Outdoor recreation has revealed society’s changing interests the past two decades. The longer lawmakers and policymakers ignore those realities, the greater our funding deficits will grow.
And no amount of budget cuts, and discounted and underpriced licenses, will hide their cowardice.
No amount of budget cuts, and underpriced hunting and fishing licenses will cover the growing price of managing Wisconsin’s natural resources. — Patrick Durkin photo
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