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Wildlife Management Institute 



1101 14th Street, N.W. • Suite 801 • Washington, DC. 20005 

 Phone (202) 371-1808 • FAX (202) 408-5059 



ROLLIN D. SPARROWE 

 President 



LONNIE L. WILLIAMSON 

 Vice-PreskJent 



RICHARD E. McCABE 

 SecrMaty 



June 13, 1996 



The Honorable Jim Saxton, Chairman 

 Suhcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans 

 Committee on Resources 

 805 O'Neill House Office Building 

 Washington, DC. 20515 



Dear Congressman Saxton: 



The Wildlife Management Institute strongly supports the "Teaming With Wildlife" initiative, 

 and we appreciate the subcommittee's willingness to conduct oversight hearings on this important 

 matter. We also are grateful for this opportunity to supply brief comments for the hearing record. 



The Institute was initiated in 1911 by the sporting arms and ammunition industry solely to 

 promote restoration and improved management of wildlife throughout North America. Since 

 1937, manufacturers' excise taxes on our industry's products have been invested in state wildlife 

 conservation programs via the Pittman-Robertson (PR) Program. Through the years, these monies 

 have become the backbone of wildlife conservation in this country Our industry has been very 

 supportive of this effort because it helps ensure huntable populations of wildlife that is so 

 important to future hunting equipment sales. 



Unfortunately, the amount of conservation effort supplied by the existing excise taxes on 

 sporting arms and ammunition are not sufficient to cover all species for which state wildlife 

 agencies have responsibility. Therefore, these receipts are used to a large degree on species of 

 primary interest to those paying the taxes. 



States have tried numerous ways to gain funds to expand their programs to include all 

 wildlife and thereby respond to their entire mandate and citizenry. These efforts have failed. Also, 

 led by former Congressman Ed Forsythe (NJ), Congress attempted to ease this problem more than 

 a decade ago with passage of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980 However, that 

 statute has not been funded. 



For more than 20 years, Mr. Chairman, the states and Congress have tried unsuccessfully 

 many ways to establish conservation programs that cover all wildlife This experience revealed a 



