Those who took the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's online survey for its new fishing regulations proposals might have noticed that Survey Monkey is still conducting the survey.
Survey Monkey came under the commission's scrutiny in March when Commissioner Emon Mahony noted the company's financial contributions to Humane Society of the United States. HSUS is known for supporting anti-hunting efforts around the country. Survey Monkey has contributed more than $1.63 million to HSUS.
Mahony said it is inappropriate for the Game and Fish Commission to do business with a company that finances activities that conflict with the commission's mission. By extension, the relationship puts the commission in a tenuous situation with its primary constituents by requiring hunters and anglers to fund anti-hunting and anti-fishing activities. Mahony said.
Jeff Crow, the AGFC's deputy director, said the AGFC is evaluating new vendors to replace Survey Monkey as soon as possible.
"We're developing some very good options, but this is a business option," Crow said. "Surveys are something we do. It's very difficult to pull the plug on one thing and start another thing the next day, but our staff is working diligently to go a different direction with our surveys."
Several commissioners and senior staff members have been mildly irritated over the Survey Monkey controversy. Commissioner Ken Reeves of Harrison said the commission does business with other companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, that advocate social positions that many Arkansans oppose. He said it gives the commission an unnecessary burden to evaluate vendors for ideological purity.
"It's a slippery slope to stop doing business with someone who doesn't agree with you 100 percent," Reeves said.
Mahony countered that Survey Monkey's affiliation with HSUS contravenes the Game and Fish Commission's mission, to which sport hunting is a key component.
"If it's an organization that's against the reason we exist, that's a major thing," Mahony said. "What you can find out on the Internet in five minutes, they'll [the public] bring it to our attention, as they did here."
"You do what you can, and this case we can," Reeves said.
LAKE ERLING FLAP
Lake Erling, a popular fishing lake in Lafayette County, has been a chronic headache for the commission lately.
At the commission's monthly work meeting Wednesday at Mayflower, Jim Goodhart, the commission's chief legal counsel, briefed the commission about its recent history with the lake.
Several years ago, International Paper offered to donate the 7,000-acre lake to the commission, Goodhart said. The commission declined the offer because of difficulties in determining the lake's actual boundaries.
"It's not a clearly marked area," Goodhart said. "It was going to cost $36,000 just to establish where lines ought to be. I.P. didn't want to pay it, and we didn't want pay it."
In 2004, International Paper crafted an easement with Lake Erling Properties that granted access to the lake and its shoreline to landowners around the lake, Goodhart said. He added that International Paper Co., attached the Game and Fish Commission's 1998 policies for building piers, docks and boat houses on AGFC's lakes to the easement.
"Game and Fish was involuntarily referenced and sent the message that residents should have been applying to Game and Fish to permit their structures," Goodhart said. "That's erroneous from 2004 until now."
In 2013, International Paper Co., donated Lake Erling to the American Gamebird Research Education and Development Foundation (AGRED). The new owner required landowners to apply to the AGFC for permits, but the AGFC does not issue permits for structures on lakes that it does not own, Goodhart said.
Furthermore, AGRED also requires users to buy permits to be on the lake, said Mike Knoedl, the AGFC's director.
"Somebody called me and said you have to enforce the trespassing laws down there," Knoedl said. "I told him, 'We're not going to be the police for your lake.' "
Knoedl and Goodhart said the AGFC is only involved in managing Lake Erling's fishery.
Little is known about AGRED, Goodhart said. It was formerly known as the South African Gamebird Research Education and Development Foundation, he said, but that "African" was changed to "American" at some point.
Sports on 05/21/2015