drunken socialist's spending $$$$$

[TFinalshot]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-13-09 AT 10:39AM (MST)[p]another anti gun, anti hunter, screw the outdoorsman, socialistic bill from the left winger in the whithouse . . .


Secretary Salazar Announces $26 Million for Wetlands Grants, Nearly $12
Million for Refuge Acquisitions Benefiting Migratory Waterfowl

Montana Project to Receive Funding

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today that the Migratory
Bird Conservation Commission has approved more than $26 million in
funding to protect and restore more than 200,000 acres of wetland areas
and wildlife habitat in the U.S. and Mexico under the North American
Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA). The commission, which is chaired by
Secretary Salazar, also approved $11.5 million to protect more than
3,500 wetland acres on seven units of the National Wildlife Refuge
System.

The commission includes Senators Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Blanche
Lincoln of Arkansas, Representative John Dingell of Michigan, Secretary
of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, as well as state representatives serving
as ex officio members who vote on projects located within their
respective states.

"It is an honor to preside over a program that for nearly eight decades
has secured hundreds of thousands of acres of wetland habitat throughout
North America for migratory birds," Secretary Salazar said. "The
Migratory Bird Conservation Commission is about common-sense
conservation, protecting wetlands critical to birds throughout their
nesting, wintering, and migratory ranges irrespective of state and
international borders that may intersect the flyways."

More than $24.2 million of NAWCA grant funds will support 25 projects
in 21 states and Puerto Rico, with partners contributing an additional
$60.6 million in matching funds to help protect, restore and enhance
almost 185,000 acres. Nearly $2 million for seven projects will help
protect 85,427 acres of habitat in Mexico, with partners contributing an
additional $3.5 million the projects. The grants were awarded under
NAWCA's U.S. Standard Grants and Mexico Grants Programs administered by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the
Interior. The grants are funded by annual Congressional appropriations;
fines, penalties and forfeitures levied under the Migratory Bird Treaty
Act; interest accrued on funds under the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife
Restoration Act and excise taxes paid on small engine fuels through the
Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Fund.

The Glaciated Valleys of Northwest Montana Project will receive a $1
million grant, $2.8 million in matching funds, and $2.8 million in
non-matching funds as part of a multi-phase, landscape-scale effort to
protect wetlands and associated fish and wildlife habitat in
northwestern Montana. These areas, surrounding Flathead Lake, are known
for their bird diversity, importance to migratory waterfowl and
associated rivers, lakes, sloughs and ponds that attract many bird
species.

Within the project area, the Flathead and Mission valleys support one of
the highest levels of bird diversity in the lower 48 states. This
proposal aims to permanently protect 1,169 acres and restore, enhance
and temporarily protect an additional 986 acres of significant wetland
complexes and riparian areas that are highly important to threatened
species, species of special concern, migratory birds, other important
fish and wildlife resources, and outdoor recreation. The project area
still contains significant opportunities to protect wildlife habitat in
the face of rapid conversion to subdivisions.

 

[piper]

you know that a lot of these guys won't get the sarcasm in your first sentence, just watch, and then they will start cussing Mexico.

 

[TFinalshot]

Yea, this bill really is a conspiracy to get more land under federal control so that when the time is right, the government will be able to more efficiently take over.

This is not about wildlife and hunting and fishing, and recreation and opportunity and access, and habitat, it's about government control and socialism.

Piper have you learned anything since you've been in this forum?

Good grief Dude, get a grip man. . . LOL

 

[NeMont]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-13-09 AT 11:20AM (MST)[p]NAWCA's U.S. Standard Grants and Mexico Grants Programs administered by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the
Interior. The grants are funded by annual Congressional appropriations;
fines, penalties and forfeitures levied under the Migratory Bird Treaty
Act; interest accrued on funds under the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife
Restoration Act and excise taxes paid on small engine fuels through the
Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Fund.


T,

Do you find anything different in this spending and how it is funded vs. going to China and borrowing it? Kind of looks like sportsman's excise taxes being put back to work in the interest of sportsman. Is that socialist? It certainly cannot be argued that it will stimulate the economy in the short term.

In addition there are an aweful lot of private dollars flowing into these projects to partner with the federal dollars. To frame the debate as you did is just playing politics with the issue.

Can you find private money that wants to partner with us to help stimulate our economy?

Nemont

 

[30inchbuck]

"This is not about wildlife and hunting and fishing, and recreation and opportunity and access, and habitat, it's about government control and socialism."

Dang T-Final got it right with this statement.

 

[RELH]

How are you sure that the securing and protection of those wetlands are for the hunter, and not for the future enjoyment of the yuppie birdwatcher that may replace the American hunter.
Every pile of dirt sometimes has a few specks of gold. You need to concertrate on the big picture, not just a few nuggets you find once and awhile to throw out at us.

RELH

 

[TFinalshot]

"You need to concentrate on the big picture, not just a few nuggets you find once and awhile to throw out at us."


Thanks RELH, i'll be sure to put that in my pipe and smoke it. . . LOL

You guys are great . . . you cant even own the truth for just one second. Just one second, "hey, that might actually be a good thing for us."

The cup's half full dooms-dayers, it's half full!

 

[Roy]

>Yea, this bill really is a
>conspiracy to get more land
>under federal control so that
>when the time is right,
>the government will be able
>to more efficiently take over.
>
>
>This is not about wildlife and
>hunting and fishing, and recreation
>and opportunity and access, and
>habitat, it's about government control
>and socialism.
>
>Piper have you learned anything since
>you've been in this forum?

Actually it is just another way for the enviros to keep us from expanding oil exploration and drilling opportunities!

Come on Tony! Get with the right conspiracy theory man!



UTROY
Proverbs 21:19 (why I hunt!)

 

[eelgrass]

"Secretary Salazar Announces $26 Million for Wetlands Grants, Nearly $12
Million for Refuge Acquisitions Benefiting Migratory Waterfowl"

That IT???? Only $38 million out of $787 Billion?

Sorry T,

 

[TFinalshot]

It's not too bad considering Bush drained it and gave away the bank during his tenure. . .

 

[RELH]

Tfinal, I have begun to believe that the only thing you put in your pipe and smoke is that funny wacky weed that has been distroying what few brain cells you have left.

Is your Messiah failing that much to deliver on his great promises, that you have to locate some inconsequential small potatoe facts in order to keep trying to convince us that everything is just hunkeydorey in liberal land.

Too bad he and the Dems are not living up to your expectations and the expectations of all those foolish idiots that fell for his con.

RELH

 

[TFinalshot]

Huh?

 

[D13er]

Isn't it amazing how 10 people can read the same story and facts and have 10 completely different takes on it?


great post/pic, thanks for sharing

JB

 

[TFinalshot]

what's amazing to me is that none of you guys are willing to address the fact that this is a good thing for hunters and for wildlife. That means it's good for our kids. . . we arnt getting any more wetlands and many of our national wildlife areas and refuges are dilapidated and in need of some serious maintenance, after a good number of years with little to no support. . .

 

[D13er]

whatever Adolph...

great post/pic, thanks for sharing

JB

 

[Forthewall]

Quack...quack quack..QUACK QUACK QUACK.....HONK...HONK HONK HONK. Silly goose didn't you know quacks is for ducks!

 

[REDDOG]

Tfinal, you are a sheeple.

 

[eelgrass]

T, these birds came from the Flathead River out of Kalispel a few years ago. Now I bet it won't even be legal to use scull boats. Only 20% of National Wildlife Refuges can be open for hunting, maybe 2 days a week. Now you can get in line on a shoot day and hope you draw a designated blind. Can't wait!

Plus, I guarantee that in 3 years there will be a big cry that the Refuge system is grossly underfunded. Flat broke! What a national disgrace to let our parks and refuges get so delapidated. All the poor refuge workers need to retire at age 55 with full benefits for life.

It's probably not right for us to argue anyway. It's our grandkids who got their piggy bank broken into.

I can shoot em', I just can't photograph them.

 

[TFinalshot]

I'm not sure I understand where your coming from. sounds like a bit of a spin myster, doom-n-gloom attitude to me. hard to shake a stick at flat boat full of ducks . . . kinda like getting a hot girl friend that's really really good, and after your done asking yourself, "how do you think she got that way."

Lost of practice, planning, and the right tools, just like in the photo. . .

Again, i only know what I know, but here in MT we hunt a lot, including wildlife refuges. You have to look at the organic act that created the place in order to know what uses are and are not allowed. If some uses are legal yet diminished sounds like it's an issues that still has room for discussion.

Anyhow, here's my deal, habitat is the key, hunted or not hunted, no habitat = no wildlife, no wetlands = no waterfowl, no waterfowl = no hunting = no hunting = bad system. . .

We have to keep the parts of the system in tact so as to pass along a world where options exist.

For example, if we protect a waterfowl area from being paved over for a mall, even if it's not hunted, it still have all its parts and pieces, our children therefore have a chance to make a decision about how best to use the area, they may say leave it alone they may say lets hunt it, they may even say lets pave it, but if we pave it now, they cant hunt it, they can use it and they wont ever see a duck on it. . .

The point is, in resources management, we need to leave as many options open for future generations as we can - sometimes we cant, like with oil, once it's gone it's gone. But once you pave a wetland it's gone too. If I cant hunt every wetland in america so be it, but if I'm hunting it now, my kids likely will be hunting it too.

BTW, how many areas preserved for waterfowl hunting do you know of that now ban it?

 

[mtmiller]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-14-09 AT 11:36AM (MST)[p]>Only 20% of National
>Wildlife Refuges can be open
>for hunting, maybe 2 days
>a week. Now you can
>get in line on a
>shoot day and hope you
>draw a designated blind. Can't
>wait!

Eel, gotta call you on your numbers again. Do you just pull these out as you tap the keys? I hope your response doesn't start with "I know this one Refuge in CA that I hunted once?

http://www.fws.gov/refuges/hunting/huntingGuide.pdf

 

[wetmule]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-14-09 AT 12:26PM (MST)[p]Since they are going to spend our tax dollars regardless of what we say, I for one am glad at least some of it will be used for Wildlife Habitat improvement and restoration. When they spend tax dollars on how best to get the gum off of sidewalks in Hollywood or why pigs smell in Iowa - and the countless other wastefull uses of tax dollars, - I'd have to put this one at the very top of the list in terms of a good use of tax dollars.
Afterall we all know the pork smell isn't as bad in Iowa as it is up on Capital Hill.

 

[eelgrass]

mtmiller, sorry I haven't hunted every refuge in the US. I was told that by a refuge employee, but I can't remember when or where. All of the waterfowl refuges I've hunted give maps showing the open and closed areas to hunting. Without doing the math, they all appear to be about 20% open and 80% closed. And yes, the ones I've hunted are in CA. I stand corrected if that does not apply to all. I didn't just type it at random, jerk!

Eel

 

[mtmiller]

Sorry if you feel I am being a jerk, but I don't think the way you generate your facts, much like your wolf information, is of much use.

"I was told by a refuge employee, but can't remember when or where". Is this really the best you can do?

Continuing with my jerkism....I suggest the next time just throw out some stats based on hearsay or what you have seen on a few CA maps, you do a little research to back it up. This will probably keep you from having to say "I stand corrected" once again.

 

[RELH]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-14-09 AT 06:13PM (MST)[p]Wetmule;

The fact that they spent some money on wetlands is good. I think what most of the posts is about the fact it was such a small paltry sum of money that was spent compared to other items on their agenda.

37 million dollars will not buy up very much land to devote to wetlands. I am willing to bet if it is researched, that over the years private organizations, such as "Ducks unlimited" and others have done more to preserve wetlands then this paltry sum of money will.

I think it would be interesting to see how much was spent by our gov. to bring back and protect the wolves. I am betting it was more then this token amount thrown to wetlands. I could be wrong, but I would put my money on the wolves being better taken care of.

I won't get into other pet projects of congress, there is far to many and far too much money that will thrown into them and you and I could care less except for the fact it is our tax dollars. So far it seems that that the motto on congress hill is spend spend spend and no end in sight with the congress and president we have in office. The big picture does not appear to be very pretty after you look at it.

Mtmiller; here in CA. the yuppie bird watchers have far more excess to our refuges then the hunter does. They also would like to see all hunting stopped and continue to work on that project.
I have several refuges near me and I have not hunted any of them for many years as getting access is very hard and waiting lines start the night before to gain a spot.

RELH

 

[mtmiller]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-14-09 AT 06:37PM (MST)[p]I don't doubt it RELH. I just didn't think it was fair for eel to paint the rest of the NWR's as being the same as some are in CA.

I was just looking at some of the hunt opps on Refuges in CA. Lets just say I won't be trading in Montana for Cali in the near future.;-)

 

[Jingow]

Miller, I believe what Eel, was trying to imply that if you do not have a reservation at most CA refuges that shoot decent, you are going to have a hell of a time sitting what we call a "sweat line". No sure thing to get in and shoot the day. The ones that are open all week are a walk in self registration type. You have little to no sucess at these places. It probably has to do with the population of Ca. as well of the states resrictive ways to the hunter. Be it big game or waterfowl.

 

[mtmiller]

Actually he didn't mention California at all. He did say...

1. Only 20% of National Wildlife Refuges can be open for hunting
2. maybe 2 days a week
3. Now you can get in line on a shoot day and hope you draw a designated blind.

On a national level I am stating he is incorrect. Is the information accurate if we can "assume" he was only talking about California?

 

[Jingow]

Hows Axle doing, My fav. dog. I'll responed tomorow..

 

[TFinalshot]

MT, dont troll my posts with facts. . .

 

[eelgrass]

mtmiller, here is my source for how much of a refuge can be open to hunting.

Please do some research for me to see if this is correct. We really need to get to the bottom of this.

http://www.cnie.org/NLE/CRSreports/public/pub-6.cfm

For over 20 years, duck stamp revenues were used largely for refuge operation and maintenance, but in 1958, the law was amended to require that these monies be used only for land acquisition. Hunting was allowed on only a few refuges until 1949, when FWS, under pressure from hunters claiming that the fee entitled them to expanded hunting rights on acquired lands, proposed increasing the price of a duck stamp to $2 in exchange for opening up to a quarter of the acreage on each refuge to hunting. FWS later raised the price of a stamp to $8 and agreed to open as much as 40 percent of waterfowl refuge lands to hunting. Typically, the use of duck stamp revenues to fund acquisition of refuge lands leads to the expectation that hunting will be allowed on some part of the refuge, subject to the review process described below. If FWS uses such revenues to create a waterfowl production area, then this area is, by definition, open to hunting.

 

[mtmiller]

I took a quick look at the link you provided.

"In 1989, 86.2 million acres out of a total of 90.4 million acres of refuge land were open to hunting; 77.9 million of these were in Alaska, leaving 8.3 million acres out of 12.5 million acres of refuge lands in the contiguous 48 States open to hunting."

With AK, over 95% open to hunting.
W/out AK, over 66% open to hunting.

 

[mtmiller]

>Hows Axle doing, My fav.
>dog. I'll responed tomorow..
>

Thanks for asking Jingow. Axl is doing well, but age is starting to catch up. Unfortunatley we spent as many days scouting mountaing goat this year as we did waterfowling. It was obvious after a few days of scouting that he would not be able to hunt goats with me again. My last tag in MT he was 8 months and had much more energy than I did, not so 8 years later.

He still had fun and kept his eyes open for griz and wolves, but was one beat puppy when we got off the mountain.

 

[kilbuc]

Back to the original post. I see PR funds are used. To think that this is a Obama administration propasal is not accurate. It takes at least 2 years for projects using, PR funds, to be proposed and approved. Thus, was started during the previous administration.

PR(Pittman-Pobertson) and DJ(Dingell-Johnson) funds are used to help fund the wetlands projects. The PR and DJ programs have been around since the mid-3o's. PR funds are derived from taxes on firearms and ammo collected at the manafactures level at a rate of 11% and administered by the F%W Service. Funds are given to the states on cost matching basis(75%PRvs25%state wildlife). Amount each availeable to each state is determined by license sales. Funds can only be used for wildlife habitat improvement, land acusitions wildlife research. They cannot be used for law enforcement. DJ funds are the fisheries equivalent but are taxes at the 10% level on fishing equipment. These are funds derived from sportsmen and not the genearl public.

Each year, states submit project proposals, the feds review, accept or deny and if accepted is added into the following years budget. States generally have a list of projects by proirity and it may be several years before they are high enough to be submitted.

Bottom line it is not a 2 month process. Salazaar just announced what was in the just approved budget.

from the "Heartland of Wyoming"

 

[huntindude]

A refuge that can't be hunted isn't always a bad thing.

It's not an attack on our sport to leave a few spots alone, and often the best hunting is near a place that can't be hunted.

 

[TFinalshot]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-16-09 AT 09:25AM (MST)[p]"To think that this is a Obama administration propasal is not accurate. It takes at least 2 years for projects using, PR funds, to be proposed and approved. Thus, was started during the previous administration."


Okay, so Bush did leave us in a huge friggen hole, it was not the BHO admin that started this right?

Okay, so this was "started" under Bush, or was it started under the big spending, out of control Democratic house? Hum, seems we can spin this in whatever way we want.

The point is this,

This is a sportsmans political forum, the topic fits the forum, it's interesting news that money is going to support wildlife, including ducks. If bill supports wildlife, and they are hunted, it supports the hunter. . . Again, no ducks = no duck hunting. . . fewer arguments to own guns... You can look at this cup as half full, like I do, or you can be a doom and glooomer the sky is falling were all going to die cup is half empty guy if you like. . .

Spin away boyz, but at least find the decency to own the facts. To me it matters not if this was started with Bush, if so, great I'd slap him on the back too, but for anyone that's been around politics for more that a half hour they would know that a lame duck president with an opposing house does not get to spend new money. . . the congress changes the presidents budget request and truthfully, for a budget like this, and projects in the pipeline, it's likely that little or no attention was given to it by anyone. . . so blame or give credit to whom ever you like, the fact is, it's interesting and it's important to ducks and duck hunters. . .

 

[RELH]

Tfinal;

If that was the case, why did you try to sell to us that this funding was by your favorite left winger in the white house. Don't come back and say different, your opening sentence gives the credit to Obama in a sarcastic jab to a lot of us.

Why must you hijack the credit from whom is deserving it and try to paint your party as the great benefactor to us hunters. And to think I accused Dude of speaking out both sides of his mouth.

Maybe next time you should just report the facts and keep the snide remarks to yourself and you will not end up looking like the fool you made yourself to be on this one.

RELH

 

[TFinalshot]

Wow, thanks for your insightful comments. Do you have anything things else you want to say about waterfowl, land, hunting and the federal budget?