Wouldn't it be nice if every time you wanted money, all you had to do was ask? Nevada Division of Wildlife thought they were going to be able to achieve this with Assembly Bill 47 which they sponsored.

Let's start from the beginning. Because of years of mismanagement, NDOW was hurting for money. To combat this, they have invented new ways to extract more money from the hunters, like the second chance drawing and the Wildlife Heritage Fund. Apparently, this was not enough to fulfill their monetary needs. So they slid into their bill a provision which would let the wildlife commissioners set tag and permit fees. This would be like an open bank as the wildlife commissioners do whatever the administrator wants. Currently it takes the majority of the Assembly and Senate to set fees which makes it more difficult to increase fees.

Had this portion of the bill passed, it would be disastrous not only to the hunters but to the future of hunting in our state. Because of NDOW's mismanagement, Nevada already has the highest hunting fees in the west. Passage of this part of the bill would have insured even higher fees for Nevadans. In addition, many ) people would be eliminated from the hunt by making hunting a rich person's sport. When this happens, we lose a number of hunters and that plays right into the antis' hands. We need recruitment of more hunters, not fewer.

Administrator Molini stated that the bill is sought primarily to enable mountain lion tag fee reductions. This is another whopper by Willie Molini. This statement was nothing more than a back-door attempt by Willie Molini to raise fees. And he disguised it as a

mountain lion fee decrease. If the administrator were sincere about a mountain lion fee decrease, HUNTER'S ALERT would have helped him to support it. But he shouldn't lie to the sportsmen of our state because of years of bad direction. HUNTER'S ALERT informed the sportsmen of

the state about this back-door attempt to raise fees and the consequences it would have. The sportsmen notified their legislators and asked them to remove this part of the bill and they responded. This was a victory for future generations of hunters in our state.