Director Steve Williams for Remarks for Western Outdoor Writers Reno, Nevada

October 22, 2004

Thank you. It’s an honor to be here with you. Thanks to Steve Thompson, Bob Williams and Terry Crawforth, who is the Director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife and this year is President of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Also, thanks to the National Wild Turkey Federation for sponsoring this banquet tonight.

I appreciate the value of putting the messages of our outdoor heritage into the living rooms of Amerca: in fact, there is a member of your organization to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for conveying these messages to me earlier in my life. In the late 70s, Jack Samson edited Field and Stream Magazine and was part of ABC’s American Sportsman, both regular features in my home growing up. Reading the magazine and watching those TV programs with my father were important reminders of those things that I began to value most in life: the health of our fish and game resources, and the recreation those resources represent.

Tonight I’d like to illustrate a few examples of how hunters and anglers, in our desire to protect the resources that provide for our recreation, form the very backbone of conservation. It is a backbone that must never be broken.

Hunters and anglers provide three elements that are essential to sustained conservation: money; expertise; and the strength of tradition.

First, let me talk cash. So many dollars invested in on-the-ground conservation come directly from hunters and anglers. We all know how much we personally spend each year on hunting and hunting licenses, Duck Stamps, and the excise taxes on our gear. This is money well spent since it goes right back into programs that conserve the wildlife resources we so enjoy.

The annual revenue from hunting and fishing licenses generates hundreds of millions of dollars for the states, in addition to the untold amount we contribute to local economies.

Proceeds from Duck Stamp sales go to the purchase of land for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Since the program's inception in 1934, sales of Federal Duck Stamps have generated nearly $700 million that has been used to help acquire and protect more than 5.2 million acres of habitat.

An even larger source of funding, our Sportfish and Wildlife Restoration Programs have generated more than $9 billion since 1937. These programs are among the most successful user-pays programs the Federal government has ever administered. A small Federal tax on hunting, fishing, and boating equipment, generates substantial revenue for state conservation programs. States receive more than half a billion dollars each year – that they then spend on the ground for fish and wildlife research, management, and conservation.

In addition to opening our wallets, hunters and anglers offer a brand of expertise that can only be perfected by numerous hours spent afield. As skilled observers of the woods and streams, we notice when things aren’t quite right; when duck populations are low, for example, or when deer are diseased, or when invasive fish have infested our waters. Not far from my office in Washington, DC, a few years ago, it was an angler who reported the odd fish on his hook, the first known case of the northern snakehead infestation. Today, the infestation is a serious conservation challenge that could be much worse had he not noticed it when he did.

To me, the example serves as another reminder that policymakers in Washington should not forget the value of their sportsmen constituents. President Bush certainly realizes this and that’s why, on two occasions, he has met personally with the leaders of the hunting/conservation community. I dare say no President since Theodore Roosevelt has as actively sought the advice and counsel of hunters and anglers.

Following the leadership of the President and his charge to us that we work closely with hunters and anglers, I am glad to say that I believe we’ve made some positive impact in this regard. Last year, I signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and 17 sportsmen organizations to improve and maintain hunting and fishing access to federal lands. The agreement establishes a framework for cooperation between government agencies and private organizations to improve access on Federally-managed public lands for hunters and anglers.

Of course, while I am proud of this and other efforts, I’m even more humbled by the great conservation champions of the past whose legacies we have all inherited. This leads me to the strength of tradition that hunters and anglers bring to the forefront of our wildlife and fish resource conservation challenges. More than a century ago, in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt declared a tiny island off the eastern coast of Florida as a preserve for water birds. He and other hunter-conservationists were concerned by the indiscriminate slaughter of the birds by market hunters. In fact, many of the oldest hook and bullet clubs in the country boast the strongest success stories in our shared conservation history.

Today, Pelican Island is part of a 95-million acre network of lands, including over 540 units throughout the country, devoted to the conservation and enjoyment of wildlife resources. The National Wildlife Refuge System continues to develop today, as I mentioned, from the proceeds of Duck Stamp purchases, made primarily by hunters.

Yet, while we sportsmen bring cash, a keen eye, and a strong past to the table of conservation, our resource challenges have become increasingly complex. In the view of the Fish and Wildlife Service, this makes it imperative to continue balancing our conservation problems with the solutions that hunters and anglers represent.

On our still-growing refuge system, the Service is working hard at providing first rate hunting and fishing opportunities by expanding programs on these refuge lands. In fact, since 2001, we’ve established more than 60 new hunting and fishing programs to units of the refuge system in nearly two dozen states.

We are making strides in other program areas as well. Our Migratory Bird Strategic Plan, for example, continues to yield optimistic results in bringing various plans under a broader scope. In developing this comprehensive plan, we used direct input from our partners which include states, international agencies, and many hunting groups.

Some of you will remember a few years back, in 1986, when low duck populations gave impetus to the creation of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. The phenomenal success of the program has inspired similar efforts for other species.

The National Fish Habitat Initiative is one such example. Leaders in the Fisheries community realize that something needs to happen to improve the state of fish habitat if we are going to be successful in stabilizing and improving fish populations. Seeing that success can occur through locally based, partnership-driven efforts like Joint Ventures, people decided that working at the local level to improve fish habitat would also be effective in improving the status of fish populations nationally. The Service, along with the Sport Fish and Boating Partnership Council and the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, is taking a leadership role in beginning the process of drafting a national habitat plan. This is consistent with the Administration’s cooperative and collaborative approach to conservation.

Within this national habitat plan are the beginnings of a new era in Service, State, and community based partnerships that will lead to significant strides in the conservation of our inland trout species. The Inland Trout Initiative, spearheaded by the interior Western states, scopes out the primary elements necessary to conserve unique trout species while at the same time enhancing opportunities for recreational fishing. Native trout can provide an economic draw to local communities by showcasing unique fishing opportunities.

The principles of conservation and partnerships are represented in local efforts to re-establish Lahontan cutthroat trout right here in the Truckee River Watershed and help support the point that what is good for native trout is good for fishing and fishermen, and good for the economy.

The speakers you heard this afternoon reflect the willingness on the part of Nevada Division of Wildlife, federal agencies, Tribes and NGO’s, to identify shared goals for the Truckee River watershed and native trout restoration and to pool their expertise and resources to make things happen on the ground. The Truckee River watershed is at the forefront of innovative approaches to habitat restoration. The Fish and Wildlife Service's Lahontan National Fish Hatchery Complex, in partnership with the Pyramid Lake Tribe and Otis Bay Consultants developed a strategy that restores the natural seasonal pattern of flow to the Truckee River.

The Lahontan hatchery has expanded its reliance on the Service's new Fish Passage Program to address fish passage barriers along the mainstem Truckee River. Partners are working to make it easier for fish to navigate the small rock irrigation structures along the Truckee River. They recently completed work with the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe to redesign rock diversion structures to a natural river gradient while at the same time improving the efficiency for the irrigator.

The Fish Passage Program puts federal conservation money on the ground, but it's more than tax dollars being spent. The program requires investment by others to connect fish with better habitat – and it's working throughout the country. Here in downtown Sparks, for example, partners are working to develop an irrigation design that will improve fish passage and river function. The Fish Passage Program is expected to expand locally and nationally to restore connectivity to watersheds without compromising the irrigation needs of local farmers.

The Fish Passage Program, along with our Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, our Landowner Incentive Program and a few others, have resulted in the largest amount of federal conservation dollars on the ground for states and private landowners. This is an unprecendented effort by the Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that is not well understood by the public. We need your help in publicizing this important work in private lands – 75 to 80 percent of our nation’s land.

While ultimately our efforts will lead to more fishing and hunting opportunities throughout the country, we need help in getting our messages to the public. I am concerned that in this increasingly urbanized world, fewer folks get the same kind of opportunities that I did growing up. If we do not maintain our hunting and fishing traditions, there will be more people who are not familiar with the necessity of balancing wildlife populations with available habitat; who don't understand that deer herds or snow goose populations may need to be thinned; or even worse, who just aren't interested in wildlife and wildlife habitat.

I am reminded of Jack Samson’s recent interview on the hunting tradition for ESPN Outdoors.Com. If you missed it, he described a mindset that seems to be becoming all too common in our daily lives: “Obese parents feeding hamburgers, fried chicken and Cokes to their equally obese children consider food as plastic — not made from once living cattle and once-pecking chicken.”

I’m also reminded of a possible antidote to this mindset from Gifford Pinchot’s 1939 book Fishing Talk: “Whenever you go, and whenever you can, take the youngster along.” Certainly, unless we do something, the kids of the computer age will grow up to be adults who are never out in the field to notice whether our fish and wildlife populations and habitats are healthy. For the sake of our children and the future of our resources, we want to get kids to put down the Gameboy and pick up a deer rifle or a fly rod or a pair of binoculars.

I believe that Western Outdoor Writers is poised to play a vital role here. As member Lee Allen wrote in an article describing recovery efforts for Gila trout: “A journey of a thousand miles still begins with the first step. Anything worth having has always been worth working for.”

As a relatively new organization that has quickly become the second largest regional writers’ group in the country, Western Outdoor Writers is boldly taking that first step. In doing so, you will help keep our hunting and angling traditions alive from generation to generation. It will be your messages that cross the living room threshold, luring others to the Great Outdoors -- as it did me 40 plus years ago -- to work for what we all know is worth saving.

Tell your stories, encourage others to participate in the greatest fish and wildlife conservation success story the world has ever known. Promote and encourage hunting, fishing, and our American outdoor heritage. Pass on this tradition through your stories and your actions. Future generations will certainly thank you for your efforts.

I thank you right now.