Mr. Bill Gunn of Melbourne sent me this as an email. It’s important enough that it needs to be passed along and responded to by all Florida readers.
Greetings.
Sportsmen have a long history of supporting conservation. States fund fishery and game enforcement, research and conservation through user fees raised by selling licenses. The attached link is an article from Florida Today regarding a Florida State Senator who is proposing that Florida eliminate the requirement for both fresh and saltwater fishing licenses within the state.
Florida fisherman and hunters are a very lucky lot. I lived in Connecticut where license fees go into the general fund. Their legislature is not mandated to earmark those funds toward programs impacting our sport and they skim off user fees for other purposes. But in Florida the funds are dedicated.
Note that Federal Law calls for states to administer Saltwater fishing licenses or the feds will impose a national licence requirement. If this proposal passes we will have no freshwater license and a federal saltwater license. Florida will loose funding for FWC, conservation, research and enforcement. Please take a moment to read this article and voice your concerns to the State Senator sponsoring the bill. I believe he is misguided.
Stay hooked,
Bill Gunn
President, FFF Florida Council
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110213/COLUMNISTS0308/102130328/1067/SPORTS05/CCA-will-fight-Senator-s-plan-kill-licenses
John and Billy. This guy’s a pud, a person who’s limited by the conservation of neural firings. That’s why he’s a conservative.
“figures show that more than 1 million saltwater licenses are sold in Florida annually producing revenue of over $29 million. Freshwater license sales generate almost $10 million, with over 525,000 licenses sold”.