Here is the substance of an email I received from a friend today. I haven't been following this issue but it could be big for Alaska and given the subsistence issues there will be people on all sides. Hunters, you need to carefully consider this and get involved. It might not be as simple as it appears on the surface.
I'm not a member of Safari Club and really don't know a lot about them but I trust my friend.
I marked some statements with bold letters and I may have dropped a word or two copying the file to here - my apologies but I've tried to get it right.
Personally I don't want to see more federal involvement in what is to be authority of states.
*******************
Congress is working on resolving the Resident/Non-resident hunting fees issue resulting from recent federal court decision that it is "interstate commerce" thus federal jurisdiction over [all?] hunting.
The decision impacts two hundred years of traditional state authority. Safari Club International's internal dispute illustrates the national debate and their conclusion echoes where the states are on the issue:
STATEMENT TO THE BOARD ON SCIS POSITION ON RESIDENT AND NON-RESIDENT HUNTING
The Governmental Affairs Committee and the Executive Committee are aware that there are strong opinions on either side of the resident and non-resident issue. We know that some Board members feel that the Board, or the membership as a whole, should have been polled for their opinion before coming out with a position on this issue. This was discussed during the GAC meeting in Washington in March, but the legislative issue was moving quite quickly and it was necessary to come to a position without delay. In fact, it appears that the bill introduced by Senator Reid is likely to be acted on quite soon.
We also note that there is a split of opinion in the views that have been coming in. Those in the East that we have heard from are opposed to the position while those in the West favor it. Of course, that is exactly the problem - there are two sides and hunter is fighting with hunter. Our enemies, who want to end all hunting, just love it.
SCI has tried to carve out a position that does something for both camps, without pitting one hunter against another. SCI has had discussions with state fish and wildlife directors and they are aware that we will push for reasonable non-resident license fees and for an equitable share of special tags for non-residents for sought-after species such as elk. SCI fully intends to follow up on this aggressively, pursuing fair and reasonable treatment for non-resident hunters. We intend to work with the Western Governor's Conference, the state caucuses that have been put in place by the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, and others.
By supporting the authority of the states to manage the resident/non-resident situation as they have for most of the last century, SCI's voice has influence with the state wildlife agencies. Just recently, we helped to beat back a bill in Nevada that would have imposed even stricter limits on non-residents. The state agency chief sided with us, realizing that this type of knee-jerk reaction is counter-productive.
Whatever you have heard to the contrary, the lawsuit that sparked the current situation is an invitation to federal regulation of hunting. It is hard to tell at this early point where it will lead, but the Federal Circuit Court said clearly that hunters traveling across state lines to hunt is an aspect of interstate commerce. That opens the door to federal regulation, just like signing a treaty with Canada on migratory birds at the beginning of the 20th Century put the federal government in the migratory bird business.
As hunters, we cannot afford to have our house divided. We also cannot anything that threatens to give the federal government more authority than it already has over hunting. Just think about the no-fault baiting rule on migratory birds that took years to overcome, or the mess that has occurred through in the administration of the Endangered Species Act.
And it can't all be blamed on the federal government, because once the door opened to federal regulation in any degree, anti-hunting groups will use the courts to step through the doorway.
These are the reasons that SCI chose the course that it did. Our goals are to achieve a balance between the interests of resident hunters and non-resident hunters, to support the state fish and wildlife agencies and the funding that they need to do their jobs, and to assure that it is the state agencies that remain in control of hunting, not the federal government.
Most of all, we cannot afford to give the antis the tools to divide hunters.
