Jodi Applegate Quotes

If CARA doesn`t happen this year we will be looking for ways to make the legislative package work down the road.

State fish and wildlife agencies are pretty much funding themselves. They do a tremendous job on a shoestring budget, but that is very difficult without a reliable funding source. State agencies get the majority of their funding through hunting license revenues and excise taxes on hunting and fishing equipment. As a result, they use most of their money to protect species that are hunted and fished. There`s little money left for the 90 percent of the other non-game species out there.

The appropriations bill would provide a little over a quarter of the funding that was promised. Our bigger concern is that the program is not mandatory and it does not guarantee annual appropriations, as CARA would have.