Arkansas Sportsman

Duck stamp price hike sparks a lively debate

The United States Senate passed the Federal Duck Stamp Act of 2014 on Tuesday. The president's signature will increase the price of a federal duck stamp from $15 to $25.

I posted that sentence Tuesday on Facebook, then sat back and watched the fireworks.

The federal duck stamp is a mechanism that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses to buy land for the federal refuge system. The USFWS says 98 cents of every dollar spent on duck stamps supports the mission. That is phenomenal, and I have seen nothing to cause me to doubt the veracity of that claim.

The duck stamp, along with the Pittman-Robertson Act and the Dingell-Johnson Act, is one of the most effective user-pay, user-benefit systems in existence. Those three, along with the sale of state hunting and fishing licenses, fund nearly 100 percent of all wildlife and fisheries conservation in the United States.

Twenty-three years is a long time for the price of anything to stay flat. Land is more expensive now than it was in 1991, as is the overall cost of doing conservation business. Increasing the price of the duck stamp was inevitable.

Most hunters I know lean starboard socially and fiscally. They vote against every millage initiative, but they aggressively support the duck stamp price hike.

A longtime friend in western Arkansas was an exception. His generosity to conservation organizations is boundless, but he wants no part of a duck stamp increase. He posted: "When they went from $7.50 to $15, many folks quit. I may too if it goes to $25."

Another guy retorted: "$10 bucks ... the money you would spend for lunch once or twice a YEAR! I don't drink but how much is a six or twelve pack of beer? Couple of packs of cigarettes? I've been buying 2 for years because I believe in the conservation the stamp funds so I'm all for it. If $10 is all it takes to make you quit, then it says a lot about your love and dedication to conservation and duck hunting."

Isn't that always the pitch? "It's a pittance. You'll never miss it. The same as two packs of smokes or a box of shotgun shells. It's only a small sacrifice."

It also demonstrates how these kinds of discussions almost always turn mean and personal, even among kindred spirits.

This gentleman, a South Carolinian, was gently informed that the objector whose dedication he challenged is an outdoors luminary in this state. Field & Stream honored him in 2010 as an Unsung Conservation Hero. He's taught hunter education to thousands of youngsters over the years, and he travels around the region doing outdoor skills workshops.

He also was a leader in the campaign to pass Amendment 75, which established the state's one-eighth of 1 percent state conservation sales tax. The revenue from that tax helps fund the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Department of Parks and Tourism and the Natural Heritage Commission.

He recently retired and is on a fixed income. That wasn't his gripe, though. He believes the feds don't need more money, and that raising the price of a duck stamp reinforces the notion that duck hunting is "a rich man's game."

The consensus response was that if you can afford to duck hunt, then you can afford to pay 10 more dollars.

Of course, the inverse is that if you believe you can't afford to duck hunt, then the entry fee makes the sport even more inaccessible.

My only quibble with the increase is immaterial since the bill is only a signature away from becoming law. I object to raising the price of a stamp to buy land to which the feds will lock out the public when it is politically expedient.

They did it during the so-called government shutdown in 2013 and in 1995. It would be fair to the sportsmen who pay the freight for the refuge system if the bill contained language that exempts lands bought with duck stamp proceeds from such spurious decrees.

That aside, the duck stamp funds a worthy cause. Twenty consecutive years of liberal duck seasons reminds me of that every time I buy one.

Sports on 12/07/2014

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