15 



STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES WILLIAMS, A STATE SENATOR 



IN FLORIDA 



Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and other members of 

 the Committee for the chance to appear before you today. I rep- 

 resent a very large, rural senate district in Florida, Senate District 

 4, all across North Florida from Tallahassee all the way to the At- 

 lantic Ocean north of Jacksonville, largely a rural area encompass- 

 ing 18 counties in Florida — by the way, one of the largest senate 

 districts geographically in the United States 



I currently reside in Tallahassee, Florida, where professionally, 

 I am a full-time State senator and a part-time farmer, a part-time 

 real estate broker and a part-time adjunct professor of insurance 

 at Florida State University. I sponsored the infamous charity dove 

 hunt in Florida, which was raided last October 13. As you well 

 know, serving in public office, often, you have the opportunity to 

 host charitable events, and I have been a big supporter of the Flor- 

 ida Sheriffs Youth Ranches in Florida, which are scattered all over 

 the State of Florida and have helped many young people get their 

 lives straightened out. 



The hunt that was raided — and I use that word raided loosely, 

 because that is what many have termed it as, that it was raided — 

 was held on a very isolated farm in rural Dixie County. You have 

 got to sort of go out of your way to get to Dixie County, Florida. 

 It was a large tract of land, about 200 acres in an open field on 

 about a 600-acre tract of land. But we had a luncheon that day. 

 About 125 hunters showed up to eat lunch and then went out to 

 the field. But before going to the field, I had made a little speech 

 and told everybody to please observe all of the hunting laws. I had 

 as my guest the regional director of the Florida Game and Fresh- 

 water Fish Commission, Colonel Larry Martin, there and told ev- 

 erybody that Colonel Martin was my guest and to make sure that 

 everybody observed the hunting laws. 



The hunters proceeded to the field about 1:00, and about 4:00, 

 approximately a dozen of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents con- 

 verged on the field and started pulling hunting licenses. Let me 

 just mention that I was not out there at the time. I had been out 

 very briefly as the host of the hunt to talk to different people. It 

 was extremely hot that day, and I had gone back up to the barn 

 about a mile away. And after the incident that afternoon, we tried 

 to finish the evening. Everybody was, I can tell you, very, very 

 upset, because they had been very innocently detained and written 

 up. 



But let me just say that I am not here today to bash the U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service at all. Everybody has a job to do, and 

 those agents who were called in for whatever reason that day I am 

 sure performed as admirably as they could. I will just tell you that 

 there is a lot of confusion concerning the Federal baiting regula- 

 tions under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. We have all come to 

 that conclusion, I can tell you, and something does need to be done. 

 As a matter of fact, in response to an inquiry from a congressman 

 on the matter, the regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service stated in writing had the hunters conducted an inspection 

 of the field prior to the hunt, it would have been apparent to them 

 that the field was baited. 



