Containment of the Growing Wildlife Damage Payment Program

April 1, 1985 Resolutions

Number: 1985-14

 

WHEREAS, some State wildlife management agencies have been assigned, by legislative dictate, the liability for payment of damage done to private property by wild animals (such as damage done to harvested crops, growing crops, livestock forage, orchards, nurseries, fences, loss of livestock, etc.); and

WHEREAS, the current trend is to increase by legislative action, the liability of more States in such programs; increasing the kinds of liability; and/or increasing the number of species involved; and

WHEREAS, the costs of the prevention of damage by wild animals and the payment of claims for the damage they do is escalating dramatically and is being paid from funds derived from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses; and

WHEREAS, the extent of damage claim payments and damage prevention is already detrimentally affecting other aspects of wildlife management in some States without improvement in landowner-sportsman relationships;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, in annual meeting assembled March 14-17, 1985, in Arlington, Virginia, urges its affiliate State organizations, with the Federation’s assistance, to support a nationwide effort to end the States’ wildlife damage liability in association with the following:

  1. Evaluating any new legislation intended to impose or expand existing State liabilities for wildlife damage and to work to defeat that which is not economically or environmentally sound;
  2. Preventing the inclusion of native forage as a consideration of payment of damage claims;
  3. Preventing the inclusion of orchards and nurseries established since 1980 on historic wildlife winter ranges or migration routes as a criterion for payment of wildlife damage claims;
  4. Precluding the establishment of less-than-equitable allocations of grazing between big game animals and livestock on public lands;
  5. Making efforts to end, by law, funding expended on wildlife damage to private property; and
  6. Promoting public understanding of the land use management aspects of wildlife damage in the relation between wildlife management and other uses of the land, including the emphasis on improving or maintaining wildlife habitat where this will help to alleviate wildlife damage.