Dennis Anderson: Ducks Unlimited CEO sees conservation at a crossroads

Dale Hall, the new Ducks Unlimited CEO, spoke at the Capitol City DU Chapter banquet Wednesday, ducking no important national conservation issues. But it's unclear how many in attendance actually heard what Hall said. Or, for that matter, understood the seriousness of his warning.

The Capitol City DU chapter consists substantially of Minnesota legislators, and many who were on hand at the Kelly Inn near the Capitol for the banquet Wednesday serve in the House and Senate.

Ostensibly, they attended to support conservation. And some no doubt truly believe in land and water stewardship.

But others, equally assuredly, still confuse their interest in pulling triggers in October and November with actual conservation. They were on the scene only for show, wearing camouflage caps -- literally or figuratively -- but removing them just as quickly when they returned to the House or Senate to advance one or more of their goofball fish and game management ideas.

Too bad they're not more like Hall, who came to Minnesota last week to tour some of Ducks Unlimited's habitat projects, to meet its Minnesota-based staff and volunteers -- and to try to get people's attention.

Conservation in America, Hall said, is at a crossroads. The nation is becoming more and more urbanized. Fewer kids hunt and fish, meaning America is cultivating fewer and fewer conservationists. And present-day hunters and anglers are aging.

The average age of a DU member, for instance -- of whom Minnesota has about 43,000, more than any state -- is 55, and that age is increasing one year, every year.

"When the [U.S.] House of Representatives proposed to wipe out the North American Wetland Conservation Fund, I was insulted as a hunter and a conservationist," Hall told me Tuesday.

That fund in the past 30 years has protected and preserved more than 25 million acres of waterfowl habitat, in the process leveraging more than $2 billion from about 4,000 private conservation groups and other partners.

Consider also that a bill with widespread congressional support would vastly reduce federal wetlands protection, saying:

None of the funds made available by this division or any other Act may be used by the Environmental Protection Agency to implement, administer, or enforce a change to a rule or guidance document pertaining to the definition of waters under the jurisdiction of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.

There's more:

In developing these and other proposals, Congress consulted not a single conservation organization.

"When you get into areas that hunters and anglers have supported over the years, and you get a Congress that doesn't understand what conservationists have done, I believe it's our responsibility to educate them," Hall told me. "If we have to start out loud, we'll do it that way."

Balancing state and federal budgets is important, Hall said, and hunters and anglers will do their part. But governments should cut programs that cost money, and are ineffective, not those that add to state and federal coffers.

Example: Virtually all of the federal government's contribution to conservation amounts to about $5 billion, a fraction of the federal budget.

But hunting and fishing alone -- each of which depends on clean air, clean water and reasonable amounts of wild lands -- is an $80 billion a year business in the United States, never mind the billions spend by the millions of Americans who don't hunt or fish but who watch wildlife, feed birds, visit national wildlife refuges and parks and otherwise utilize lands and waters set aside for recreation.

Hall's conservation credentials are peerless. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in the fish and wildlife sciences, and he culminated a 30-year career with the Fish and Wildlife Service as its director. So he knows something not only about natural resources but about politics, and being politic.

And doubtless he would prefer not to ruffle feathers in his attempt to keep wetlands and wetlands wildlife protections intact and funded.

But, as he said, conservation is at a crossroads in America

As it is in Minnesota.

Example: Minnesota hunters and anglers want to increase their license fees marginally; fees that haven't been bumped up in a decade. Why is it important? Because the Game and Fish Fund, which pays for fisheries and wildlife management in the state, is going broke. But the Republican-controlled Legislature won't give the idea a hearing, saying its pledge "not to raise fees" is more important than promoting conservation -- even if the vast majority of those who pay the fees approve the idea.

One by Rep. Tom Hackbarth, R-Cedar, would allow fishing with two lines. Note to Hackbarth: You and about three of your buddies want this, no one else.

Others by Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, essentially would prevent additions to the state wildlife management area system, and undo the DNR's well- vetted deer management plan in the southeast. Note to Drazkowski: If you have three friends in conservation, they're hiding.

Hall mentioned none of these Minnesota shenanigans in his Wednesday speech. As chief of DU, his concerns necessarily are more largely scaled.

Yet perhaps someone should have said something about the elephant in the room, here in Minnesota, because three of the Legislature's biggest conservation players this session -- Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, Rep. Denny McNamara, R-Hastings, and Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria -- attended.

Maybe they came to help ducks.

Either way, a true conservationist, Dale Hall, representing a forward-looking conservation group, Ducks Unlimited, issued a warning they should heed:

Conservation in America is at a crossroads.

In Washington. In St. Paul. Everywhere.