Outgoing Chairman Worries About Conservation Congress’s Relevance

   Racine’s Rob Bohmann, longtime chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, will preside over the group’s annual convention for the last time when it meets May 15-16 in Green Bay.

   But unlike the first time Bohmann yielded that unpaid job a decade ago, he vows to never return to the group’s helm.

   “It’s time,” Bohmann said in a telephone interview. “I won’t come back a third time.”

   The WCC, a 92-year-old institution, serves as Wisconsin’s official adviser to the Natural Resources Board, the seven governor-appointed citizens who set policy for the Department of Natural Resources. The 360-member WCC consists of five representatives from each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.

   Bohmann, 61, has paid nine years of penance as WCC chairman, first from 2011 to 2016, and then 2022 to 2026. He will, however, keep serving as chairman of Racine County’s WCC delegation and its deer advisory committee, thus extening his 22-plus years of volunteer service.

   But that’s where he’s drawing the line. Family obligations require more of him. Besides, Bohmann thinks at least a couple of people want to chair the WCC. That’s different from four years ago, when he felt he had no choice but to return as chairman. Tony Blattler of Phillips (Price County) was stepping down after serving two years (2020-2022), and Larry Bonde of Kiel (Manitowoc County) wasn’t interested in an encore after serving four years  (2016-2020) as Blattler’s predecessor.

     Rob Bohmann (inset), the outgoing chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, will preside over the WCC’s annual convention for the last time when it meets May 15-16 in Green Bay. — Patrick Durkin photos

   Still, Bohmann worries more than ever about the WCC’s future. “I’m afraid the next generation just doesn’t volunteer for this kind of work unless it’s convenient,” Bohmann said. “Plus, the Congress has been fighting a slow death ever since (governor) Tommy Thompson made the DNR secretary a cabinet position in 1995. With governors appointing the DNR secretary instead of the NRB (which had that power from 1968 to 1995), the Congress became less relevant the past 30 years. Each administration now pushes its own conservation policies, not necessarily the public’s.”

   One could argue, of course, that the WCC’s decline isn’t all about power-hungry governors stiff-arming public input. Activities requiring volunteers and organized groups have declined steadily nationwide since television’s arrival after World War II, whether it’s participation in unions, bowling leagues, or civic groups like the Rotary and Lions Club.

   Just ask former members of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, a nonprofit organization that dissolved itself May 4 after nearly 90 years as the state’s “unified voice for conservation.” Since 1937, the MUCC has worked for hunters, anglers and other outdoor enthusiasts by advocating, educating and partnering with state agencies and Michigan’s conservation community.

   The MUCC had lost members for years, and announced in April that it needed to quickly raise $100,000 to pay its operating costs. The organization once represented over 400 conservation clubs, but that figure fell to nearly 100 recently as younger generations lost interest. When the MUCC’s call-to-action raised only $34,000 in recent weeks, its board of directors announced it would end operations by mid-June.

   The WCC, in contrast, is reliably funded by the DNR through license fees. Its annual budget the past 30 years has been $80,000. But much like the MUCC, it has been around a long time (since 1934), and relies heavily on older generations to fill its ranks, committees and officer positions.

   And unlike the MUCC, the Conservation Congress isn’t just an advocacy group. Since 1971 under Gov. Patrick Lucey, the WCC has been state-sanctioned to advise the NRB on natural-resource policies. Lucey’s declaration formally recognized a three-decade tradition that began soon after the WCC’s creation 92 years ago. Wisconsin lawmakers in the mid-1940s grew weary of annual deer-management spats between hunters and state biologists, who pushed hunters to shoot more female deer to balance herds with their habitat.

   Legislators in that era told the WCC and biologists like Aldo Leopold to work things out together, and not bother them until settling matters each year. The Legislature then reviewed and usually OK’d the annual plans so they could focus on bigger matters.

   Likewise, WCC officials protected their turf, and regularly asked lawmakers to butt out when they tried replacing flexible fish and wildlife rules with rigid laws. In March 1991, for example, Mary Hubler, a Democratic assemblywoman from Barron County, tried to shut down a proposed 16-day gun-deer season by making the 9-day “traditional” deer season state law. When a Senate committee heard Hubler’s bill, WCC chieftains like Henry Liebzeit of Appleton reminded senators of an even older tradition: The Conservation Congress had been handling such matters for nearly 50 years, first with the Conservation Department and then the DNR.

   Further, in January 2006, WCC Chairman Steve Oestreicher of Harshaw chastised a joint legislative committee after it bowed to snowmobile lobbyists who disliked a DNR and Conservation Congress plan for late-season gun-deer seasons in the Northwoods. A state senator scolded Oestreicher for his criticisms and reminders about the WCC’s advisory role, but the committee backed off, disappointing snowmobilers and their four $150-per-hour lobbyists.

   Unfortunately for the WCC, lawmakers became increasingly involved in the minutia of deer management after Wisconsin discovered chronic wasting disease in February 2002. WCC leaders stayed silent or raised little fuss when Republican lawmakers like Scott Gunderson wrote a 2003 bill that restored deer baiting; when Tom Tiffany wrote 2011 bills outlawing earn-a-buck and October gun-deer hunts; when Scott Suder wrote a 2012 bill to make wolf seasons mandatory whenever they aren’t federally protected; and when Joel Kleefisch wrote 2017 bills that outlawed carcass tags for deer, turkeys and Canada geese.

   And Bohmann himself didn’t challenge Scott Walker in 2011 when the governor’s Act 21 inadvertently hip-checked the Conservation Congress from the process for enacting administrative rules, instead steering proposals to legislators while minimizing DNR input.

   The fallout from legislative actions the past 30 years is evident today in the WCC. For example, during April’s statewide conservation hearings, roughly half (48%) of citizen-submitted resolutions would require lawmaking and the governor’s signature, not just administrative rules OK’d by the WCC and NRB.

   Bohmann fears all these factors — social, legal and bureaucratic — have made the WCC increasingly less effective. “People want results,” he said. “Relevancy comes from people seeing results. If you can’t provide results, people quit volunteering and providing input. They think they’re wasting their time. I fear that’s where we’re at too often these days.”

   What lies ahead for the WCC and its future leaders? All that’s certain is that it took roughly 30 years to reach its current status. The journey to reverse things might take far longer, but it must begin with one step, short or long, by its next leaders.