By Bruce Ross, Executive Director
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s February 2020 Volunteer Newsletter edition.
President Bruce Urben recently represented WWA membership in a Capitol meeting of legislators, staff, and other interested organizational partners (like DU and WI Wetlands Association) to share information on the importance of increasing the funding available for wetland habitat restoration.
As you may know, WWA and others have been lobbying on behalf of increasing the WI Waterfowl Stamp for several years, but it simply hasn’t moved forward. Currently, a bill to raise the fee to account for inflation (from $7 to $12), introduced by waterfowling Representative Ken Skowronski (R-Franklin) is stalled and not likely to move forward, either. Our next opportunity to gain traction will be this summer, or maybe in the fall as the state government begins to consider the next biennium budget.
In the waterfowl survey just completed, 85% of you said “YES – please raise the Wisconsin Duck Stamp fee to account for inflation” to help keep WI waterfowl numbers strong. Since most ducks harvested in Wisconsin are born in Wisconsin, to make sure the remaining wetland habitat that best supports Wisconsin breeding ducks is well-tended – and that takes funding. WWA leverages donations and raised funds dollars to acquire Duck Stamp funding, and other restoration grant money to do just that! But inflation over the past twenty years since the last fee increase has eroded the power of that money – we simply can’t keep up with wetland losses throughout the state. Particularly, the small wetlands that are disproportionately impacted and important.
We want to make our next bite at the fee increase ‘apple’ successful. New WWA Board Policy Committee Chair Randy Helbach, Bruce Urben and I recently conferenced with new volunteer George Ermert to begin laying out the plans. George, a waterfowler, and whose day job is as a professional lobbyist(!) in Madison, is bringing some fresh perspective to the challenge. More information will be forthcoming, but YOU can play a role.
We will need to identify key legislators, and bring them out to duck-stamp-funded projects, and communicate (in hopefully large numbers) about the importance, and build grassroots influencer networks to let our elected officials know how important this is to us. Want to play a role??? For a couple of minutes to an hour, you can make a huge impact on the future of WIWaterfowling. Email me at bruceross@wi.rr.com if you’re interested!