Order mandates that BLM must take
recreational users (yep, that’s us) into
account when identifying lands for dis-
posal or exchange. Hundreds of thou-
sands of acres of hunting lands will now
be protected for recreational use.
There’s more. In March, President
Trump signed into law the Natural Re-
sources Management Act. This compre-
hensive bill was composed of important
conservation components from more than
120 existing bills. It’s very complex, but it
does a lot for hunting and conservation.
Bipartisanism has been lacking in
Washington the past two years, but ap-
parently Democrats and Republicans
understand the importance of outdoor
recreation on federal lands, because they
unanimously voted for this bill. The Sen-
ate passed it by a vote of 92 to 8, and two
weeks later the House passed it by a vote
of 363 to 62. It charges the U.S. Forest
Service, BLM, the National Park Ser-
vice, and the Fish and Wildlife Service to
identify lands where you can hunt, but
access is limited or totally absent. The
bill guarantees funds to enhance public
access by adding $15 million a year to
increase public access to existing lands
for hunting, fishing, and other forms of
outdoor recreation.
There were some small components
of this bill. For example, you can now
drive through a National Park with a
bow in your car. This has been an issue
in some parks such as Yosemite National
Park. The bill protects the headwaters of
an important watershed in Washington
State from mining. It creates various
protection and designation of historical
sites. Nothing to do with conservation,
but important nonetheless.
Are you getting the impression that
the present administration believes
that all forms of outdoor recreation are
important, and that doing so on public
lands is very important? Getting past
many years of political wrangling in lo-
cal areas to create access for hunters and
other outdoor-recreation users is very
important, especially for residents of
those areas. Hats off to a huge number of
conservation and recreation organiza-
tions, and to hundreds of politicians for
coming together to pass this legislation.
This bill is the largest and most com-
prehensive public-lands package ever
passed. I cannot overemphasize how im-
portant this legislation is for conserva-
tion and hunting. At a time when we’re
wondering why Congress is not acting
on important issues for this country,
they sure struck gold on this one.
THE LATEST ON STATEN ISLAND
Recently I wrote about the vasectomy
program to resolve the deer problem on
Staten Island. The latest is that after spend-
ing $4.1 million on deer vasectomies
over the past three years, things haven’t
improved much. The herd has dropped
around 15 percent, with 1,577 bucks ster-
ilized. That’s a cost of around $13,000 per
deer. There were an estimated 2,000 deer
there in 2017, and today it’s down to 1,737.
No question, this spring’s fawn counts will
be significantly lower, but deer numbers
are still causing auto collisions. Lyme dis-
ease cases are way up. Would a controlledhunt work, and would it be cheaper? Are
you kidding me? Of course, the answer is
YES, but the city is now negotiating with
the company doing the vasectomies for a
five-year extension for another $2.5 mil-
lion. Great job if you can get it, but the re-
ality is that in the long run, this will never
have much impact on auto collisions, or
the incidence of Lyme disease, because
it will not bring deer numbers down to a
level that hunting would.If you have questions about topics covered in this col-
umn or on any wildlife-management issues or wildlife
species, contact Dr. Dave at [email protected].