westelkman -
Exactly the point I was trying to make in the other thread.
"400elk
You touched on the problem I have with SFW in UT and AZ. Everyone here has been commenting on what should be done for the wildlife and habitat, and whether quality or quantity should be the issue as if SFW would ever do anything to improve the situation. SFW exists to generate revenue for SFW. SFW spends as little as possible on wildlife, but just enough to keep sucking in the uneducated and fleecing them for dollars.
According to the 2007 tax returns for SFW, which is the latest year I've benn able to find, SFW took in $3,348,790. They spent $3,068,613 and of the total money spent, $83,687 went to big game habitat improvement, $30,000 went to a grouse study, $334,365 went to habitat projects and $1,914 went to turkey feeding for a total of $449,966 spent in a manner somewhat related to wildlife. The other $2.6 million was spent on management fees, consulting fees, Expo costs and tag purchases. If you want to understand the priorities of a company or an individual, you need only to look where they spend their money. SFW spends 14% of their revenues on wildlife and 86% on funding raising and paying their cronies. In AZ, its even worse. 95% of the funds raised by SFW in AZ went to one individual to prepare their monthly e-newsletter and maintain the website. Zero went to wildlife. I haven't loked into MT, WY,ID and AK, but I'm sure its much the same.
Anyone that thinks SFW exists for the benefit of wildlife is just refusing to face the facts or is the recipient of their dirty money. How much good could've been done if $3 million in donations were given to an organization that actually spent the money on projects? In my opinion, SFW, and any other similar organization, sucks the vast majority of discretionary funds available to benefit wildlife out of the market and squanders it on their own greed. Guys like this need to be exposed and drummed out of the wildlife community."