Cost of lower limit and raising fees
West Virginia
Contributors to this thread:
JayD's Link
What a bunch of BS.......Another 1 sided story without factual basis,......But then again, its Chris Lawrence, puppet of the nay sayers...
JayD let me guess, you believe this article?
Did i miss in the article where this info came from? Did i miss where he mentions WV already is losing license sales, which in turn loses vast amounts of money on the Pittman-Robertson Act, all while our neighboring states flourish with sales ? Thats some straight up good reporting right there, maybe CNN or Fox could hire him.....SMH.
Sounds like he got his info from 2 of the commissioners, you know the 2, that have been fighting change a long time, living in their 1990's still..
I agree with this. If I understand this correctly lowering the UCLA limit will do away with the 3rd tag. That money will have to be made up somehow. And I’m sure the state will have to pay someone to “study” it. As I’ve said before, without increasing fees for something they can’t lower the limit.
After reading that there is no way in this world that they will reduce the limit. We need more officers not fewer.
Buck limit not UCLA limit
Someone from out of state has to be paid for most everything. Smart people in this state don’t seem to exist! Lol
I do think that doing away with the third deer tag will reduce what the DNR takes in. I don't think that is fake.
Hunting is on the decline nation wide! Ohio has lost 1 million hunters in the last decade. They do have a much higher population of people, so they will sell more license than wv anyway, but Ohio is saying there concerned. States Greed is the bottom line they have made x amount of dollars in the past. Declining hunters is cutting into there bottom line and now there panicking. They think raising license fees will get them the same x amount of dollars that there used too. Well they will lose more license sales because of the price fee increase. Some people would refuse to pay it and some more wouldn’t be able to afford it. They will lose the federal money also because it goes off license sales, it doesn’t matter how much the state charges per license there is still only a x amount of licenses sold. Now I believe the article said they would lose officers because of the loss and that I believe would be true, however let’s look at the other side less hunters would mean less officers needed. Now it is my opinion that if you tried antler restrictions only and first you would see larger bucks without a tag reduction. A lot of bucks should survive because they wouldn’t be legal to shoot. Now I can hear you guys saying already that wouldn’t fly, hunters would be mad. Well any proposed changes will cause that. Now my 2 cents I think hunters will continue to decline no matter what they do. (To many other things to do now a days) and a lot of people now a days don’t have patience and/ or places to hunt. My father told me 35 years ago hunting will become a rich mans sport. I see it,
Oh geesh here we go - more claims of rigging and manipulation of numbers from BBM on the way!
Jr, According to Gary Foster if the 3rd buck tag was not available it would cause a potential loss of approx. 300,000 a yeari revenue right now. If the price of resident and Nonresident hunting licenses went up 3.00 it would cover the loss and then some.
My comment was more about why is an article being written highlighting WORST case scenarios 3 days before the Commission meeting about a bill that Legislature has already said it is NOT going to be run? I’m surprised that it didn’t include the sun going dark and all human life on earth dying within 2 months. The DNR is losing license and tag revenue at a rapid pace. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The heydays of selling large amounts of licenses and tags are over. They worked when WV was killing 90-100thousand bucks a year during rifle season, but they are not working now. Successful businesses change their product when the product they have isn’t selling.
hoppies56's Link
WHAT, 34 to 48 % of hunters would not buy licenses based on estimates from 2006 does anyone really believe that junk. The dnr could just drop the 3 buck tag no one kill 3 bucks anyway. OH , i forgot hunters just buy the tag they dont use it. Any excuse to not lower the buck limit.
That article was written with the same amount of bias that the BBM guys use when talking about how poor of a job the state is doing at managing the deer herd.
It blows my mind to see some men so critical of numbers that contradict their wishes yet, totally able to dismiss numbers from a state agency charged with managing wildlife, as if they don't even exist. It'd be easy to live life like that if you were interested in nothing but getting things to suit your wishes.
I have never seen a how many hunters buy RG AND RM stamp. Or the amount of money taken in buy those 2 stamps
Hoppie, just call DNR and ask for annual report.
Thanks Gobbler, I will give them a call
Hoppie, I just checked the newest one is online DNR website now under publications
He probably got his info from the brain trusts at the WV "We are ignorant" Whitetail Alliance crew, where facts dont dont matter....
Drop the buck limit. make it a 2 buck limit increase fees 5 dollars on residents 10 dollars on non residents to cover loss on 3 tag plus some. No need in changing how class n are purchased or complete over haul of license fees. When was last time wv raised fees compared to other states. JUST MY THOUGHTS
The state should be increasing fees a little bit each year so the sting is not so great when it gets down to really needing the funding and having to make a large increase like the one proposed.
No one kills 3 bucks but they sell the tags. Lost money is lost money. Our DNR needs more money
WV Hunters buy 91,864 CLASS X SPORTSMAN PACKAGE licenses , A modest raise of 5.00 would generate 455,000 dollars Non resident buy 14, 724 again 5 dollars raise would generate another 73, 620 dollars. for a total 531,620 increase in funds for dnr with a simple but modest 5 dollars raise on those 2 licenses packages
I do agree hunters number are down and will continue to go because kids have too much to do now and lots of hunters are really too lazy to hunt. It’s a business and like any other business you have to increase fees if your bottom line is down . As far as places to hunt we have plenty of public land to hunt. Can’t hunt it all in a lifetime . And if you buy a lifetime license you don’t have to worry about it . I’m glad I bought mine 30 years ago
I don’t pretend to know how to run that type of business but the revenue is not related to see kill. I think it is due to lack of hunter interest. And you may be right that having bigger bucks might get more people involved. And we all know that they won’t reduce the buck tags. With them losing money they can’t afford to.
And Rutbustsr is right they need to increase their fees each year. Most business do.
IMHO, someone dropped the ball on an excellent chance to negotiate. Both House and Senate floated the idea of increasing license fees to reduce buck limit. They knew those were astronomical fee increases and were just there to start a conversation. But they were there as a starting bid. If I were a business that was losing money I would jump on that and negotiate. Starting with, I like the idea of increased income for DNR but we think those are too much. Let’s work together to get a reasonable price that will help fund DNR but not so much as to potentially scare off business. Instead, the stonewall and scare tactics are put up once again. I wish the DNR the best of luck in that strategy, but as we’ve all seen in the last few years that strategy hasn’t seemed to work out well for agencies or courts. JMHO, but I don’t think it ever works out well to attack the people that control the purse strings .
Thanks Hoppie, just my own personal opinion and observation. Not speaking on behalf of Commission. It makes even less sense since it’s directed to the Chairman of House Natural Resource Committee and Senate Majority Leader. 2 pretty powerful positions.
Just to clarify here's the total license sales revenue per year in that time period. 2006 $10,123,221 2007 $ 8,575,713 2008 $10,254,920
So we had a one tear dip in revenue of 15.3 percent but went above the original revenue the next year.
And we only lost 6.3 percent of license sales which is on line with yearly losses.
I’ve been applying for licenses and tags in midwestern and western states for close to 40 years and the trends I’ve seen with license increases is there is usually about a 10% drop off the first year after a major increase then by 2nd year it is back up to and usually a little above baseline.
Maybe the lack of annual license cost increases is the DNR admitting that they can't justify the cost increase in something that hasn't changed or improved. It would be like charging you for a sports car but you are actually getting a four door family car. Just a thought. Gobbler is correct that the DNR really missed a great opportunity to negotiate a cost increase.
I don’t think they will drop the buck limit or raise the price of a license
A bill a few years ago was widely supported and passed which allowed DNR to raise the license fees to keep pace with inflation in small, routine increments. I believe it was last year a slight fee increase (I'm pretty sure it was less than $3) was scheduled to be implemented and the legislature would not allow it. Why was there not a clean bill to allow an increase to fees without being tied to lowering the limit if the goal is to help the DNR? Of course, no one on here is naive enough to believe that was the goal.
Yea we need more money for the DNR. The deer limits should have nothing to do with it.,
$5 yearly landowner license trumps any modest increase.
Buy your firat deer. Universal class N stamps.
Simplify the tag mess.
Funny, everyone wants the best in everything, but they want it for next to nothing/free or putting in the work.....
Just cashing in my .02 cents. All these new bill introductions have left my head hurting. The school bill with the teachers now this hunting bill. I read that the state or somebody says that if they lower the buck limit and raise fees there will be a loss of an estimated $3.7 million a year. I truly find that hard to believe. I hear both sides of the argument. On one side we want to kill bigger more mature BUCKS; the other side says venison is what we use to feed our family. Last I checked we don't eat the horns. My proposal, on base license DOES are free up to 5, with a 2 BUCK limit, you pick the season. Anything after that you pay, $ 50+ for a tag. Try for 3 years, maybe the worst that could happen is we lower our DOE herd and those smaller bucks might have a chance to grow into something better. Of course its not a solution and problem has a bunch of holes in it; its just an opinion , remember everyone has one.
I agree B Otis. Let's pony up the money
Its got to be tag costs JR. lots of lifetime holders out there.
I'm not sure they will pay extra for the tags