Thursday, January 12, 2012
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Fees being collected at DGIF areas
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Maybe you haven’t seen any new ticket booths or heard any turnstiles clicking; nonetheless, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries on Jan. 1 initiated a new fee system at its 39 wildlife management areas (WMA) and 35 public lakes.
It is a modest, yet significant, step by the agency to expand its funding base at a time when money is tight.
The WMAs are scattered from the steep ridges of Washington County to the salt marshes of Eastern Shore. They total more than 203,000 acres. For the most part, anglers and hunters have shouldered the cost to acquire and maintain these sites.
The new plan is designed to get hikers, horseback riders, bird watchers, paddlers, primitive campers and the like to help do some of the lifting at a time when sportsmen’s dollars are struggling to keep up with needs. For years non-consumptive outdoorsmen have used the facilities without financial obligation.
The new fee system works this way: If you possess a hunting, fishing or trapping license or a boat registration, you won’t have to pay to use the areas. If you don’t have a free pass in the form of a license or registration and are 17 or older, you will be charged a $4 daily user fee or $23 annual permit. DGIF would prefer you buy a hunting or fishing license, because the agency gets federal matching money for each license sold.
Access permits can be purchased online at www.dgif.virginia.gov, by calling 1-866-721-6911 or at any of the 700 license agents statewide, such as found in Walmart stores. Failure to have a permit can result in a fine of up to $50.
With the fee system comes a new WMA management plan that was drafted after more than 4,000 face-to-face interviews with visitors, stakeholder workshops and a month-long period of public comment.
The first draft of the plan had its critics. One was Rick Layser, of Middlebrook, the vice president of the 6,000-member Virginia State Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation.
“This draft WMA policy is an attempt by wildlife diversity activists to take over WMAs from hunters and fishermen,” he said. His concern was that future WMAs would be purchased and managed primarily for plants and wildlife that are listed as species of greatest concern in Virginia, not for game and fish species valued by sportsmen.
Layser said the final plan addressed most of his concerns.
“I was pleasantly surprised and pleased,” he said. “They made hunting, fishing and trapping as the primary recreational use and made game management the goal of the WMAs."
