Mahlon Brown chose not to seek another term as a wildlife commissioner. That was really good news for the sportsmen and the game in our state!! 1 am sure that he had his reasons for not seeking reappointment and I am sure that those reasons would be different from those of HUNTER'S ALERT.

AB307, a HUNTER'S ALERT sponsored bill passed in the 1995 legislature, prevents a wildlife commissioner from serving more than two consecutive terms as chairman. Mr. Brown had been chairman of the Wildlife Commission since his appointment by Governor Miller nine years ago. Could it be that if Mr. Brown couldn't be the chairman that he didn't want to be "just" a commissioner? Or is Mr. Brown just tired of sticking up for an incompetent administrator of the Division of Wildlife who is constantly screwing up?

The real question here is, Why was Mr. Brown appointed in the first place? It surely wasn't because of his wealth of hunting knowledge. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Brown hunted chukar once in Elko and got lost. (Many Elko residents wish it would have been on a permanent basis.) Mr. Brown was probably appointed because a.) he was a former politician and Governor Miller appointed him to help the reelection campaign, or b) he was put there to protect Willie Molini.

Whatever the reason, Mr. Brown was a disgrace to the sportsmen in our state. He did put on a good show at the Wildlife Commission meetings

but did absolutely nothing to keep our deer and sheep from declining.

The Wildlife Commission should be the liaison between government and the general public. This was not the case with Mr. Brown. He chose to rubberstamp NDOW's requests most of the time.

In addition, whenever Mr. Molim was in another scrape, he chose to fully protect the administrator.

But why? Could it be that when Mr. Molini was in charge of the big game tag draw, he did some favors for people in high places?

I'm sure Mr. Brown would tell you of all of his accomplishments during his tenure on the Wildlife Commission. (Whatever they may be) But while Mr. Brown was in charge of setting policy, our deer tags went from 57,000 to 21,000! In other words, we lost 68% of our deer herds. He was told about the decimation of our sheep and he chose to do absolutely nothing about it. Could he have corrected these situations? Absolutely! But he chose to buy in to Willie Molini's ten year drought program. Let it be known that Mr. Brown did not represent the sportsmen, a position to which he was appointed. In addition, he did not

enhance the natural resource by keeping deer and sheep numbers high. Mr. Brown chose to put politics ahead of these two important aspects of the responsibility of being a wildlife commissioner. People like Mr. Brown will merely fade into the sunset. However, Mr. Brown has left years of destruction behind all in the name of politics.