Patty Burnaman | WWL First News
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service says hunting is declining, creating a problem for funding conservation. This is also true in here in Louisiana.
The revenue from hunting licenses sales basically funds the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. So when hunting suffers, conservation suffers -- and not just conservation of game animals, but conservation of all wildlife resources.
"Among the problems we have in Louisiana are access, and coastal wetlands lost is a big factor because we just don’t have the waterfowl habitat that we used to," said WWL Outdoors Show host Don Dubuc. "Without the waterfowl habitat, we don’t have a place for ducks and geese to live, and survive here, and means less places for people to go, which means they turn their interests to something else."
The sale of hunting licenses in Louisiana, and the federal tax on hunting gear, fund conservation efforts nationwide. The taxes are divided among the states depending on the number of hunting licenses sold. So when the numbers go down, so do the dollars.
The average non-hunting resident does not pay taxes that fund wildlife preservation, said Dubuc.
"This is very unfair," he said. "If you breathe the air, drink the water, eat the seafood, you owe this to the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries."