Has the NYSDEC become “totally green?”

The recent direction New York State’s conservation and habitat programs are heading toward is rather scary, or it should be to anyone who understands our natural environment. Whether they’re being restructured, reduced or eliminated entirely, the priorities once at the heart of sound conservation in the state are rapidly being pushed aside to favor the totally environmental and non-consumptive ones that, while giving a “feel good” impact, will do little or nothing to insure sound conservation in the future.

Protecting our environment should obviously be one priority of the Department of Environmental Conservation, but it shouldn’t dominate at the cost of ignoring critical conservation safeguards and practices. Otherwise, it should be renamed the “Department of Environment” and drop the word “Conservation” altogether.

The bulk of the DEC’s attention and efforts now go toward insuring our natural environment qualities while also providing a wide variety of non-consumptive outdoor recreational activities and programs available to the public. But as the number of people who hunt or trap has declined, the DEC’s emphasis on managing wildlife and habitat has declined right along with it. What is alarming is these licensed activities, along with fishing, have, via the Conservation Fund, historically paid the tab for much of the conservation and management work done in the state. The growing popularity of non-licensed activities such as hiking, birding, wildlife watching, canoeing, kayaking, tubing, etc. is now a higher priority for DEC than hunting and trapping. The bulk of incidental funds and sales taxes generated by these non-licensed activities goes into the General Fund, supposedly to be used to maintain or expand these opportunities, but that’s not guaranteed.

Keep in mind that the state — first under the old pre-1971 Conservation Department, and then the DEC – has historically depended on hunting and trapping to manage wildlife that might otherwise become overabundant to the point of endangering our natural habitat or the public health. If the DEC – and Albany in general – continues to turn their backs on the role these activities play in conservation, what will be the consequences in the years ahead?

Perhaps the fault lies with our elected state officials, the majority of whom now calling the shots hail from the large urban regions downstate and appear to know next to nothing about our upstate environment’s day-to-day natural workings. Most couldn’t tell the difference between a fox and coyote if one bit them in the butt. And for many of them, it seems that killing a deer on the highway is “an accident,” while killing one via hunting is “socially unacceptable.” This “head-in-the-sand” approach now seems to be dictating DEC policies and funding.