Why It Matters: State fish and wildlife agencies are staffed with wildlife biologists that are equipped with the experience and expertise needed to make sound, science-based decisions that benefit the state’s natural resources. Legislation that would impose unnecessary requirements on an agency, curtail its management authority, or add financial and staffing burdens threatens not only fish and wildlife populations, but the very traditions of the sportsmen and women that pursue them.
Highlights:
- Indiana Senate Bill 32 would establish a pilot program to identify, breed, and release certain white-tailed deer onto Indiana’s landscape.
- No funds are provided in the legislation to allow the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to carry out this new body of work, but the legislation would allow them) to “sell” farm raised deer for $500 each.
- The bill undermines the Indiana DNR’s authority to manage the state’s deer populations through sound, science-based decision-making by forcing a management practice on them regardless of whether they believe it to be in the best interest of the resource.
- The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) worked with state and national partners to generate opposition to SB 32, resulting in the Senate Committee on Natural Resources tabling the bill.
Indiana SB 32 would establish the Chronic Wasting Disease Pilot Program. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a progressive, fatal, degenerative neurological disease occurring in both farmed and free-ranging cervids. As introduced, the bill does not establish an up-front funding source or staff allocation to establish the program but would charge the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) with collecting and testing DNA samples of white-tailed deer on the Hoosier State’s landscape and with creating and operating a captive breeding program to identify, breed, and release white-tailed deer that have certain genetic markers.
As with all fish and wildlife management decisions, responses to the potential spread of CWD should be based on established scientific practices, and any legislation should empower a state fish and wildlife agency such as the Indiana DNR with the authority to protect the state’s cervid populations, rather than establishing an experimental pilot program that cuts into staff resources and funding paid for off the backs of hunters and anglers. The bill legislatively requires the agency to add farmed deer to the state’s free-ranging white-tailed deer herds, rather than allowing the DNR’s biologists – which have dedicated their careers to protecting Indiana’s wildlife – to utilize their experience and expertise to decide what is best for the Hoosier herd.
CSF has worked in concert with national partners to oppose SB 32, which undermines the Indiana DNR’s management authority and places an unfunded mandate on them that will detract from the agency’s existing and critical work to manage the state’s fish and wildlife resources. The bill was scheduled for a Committee hearing last week, but, given the strong, coordinated opposition from Hoosier sportsmen and women, the bill was tabled. CSF will continue to monitor the legislation and its proposed amendments and will engage throughout the legislative process.
