HUNTER'S ALERT continues to receive comments from Nevada sportsmen. We welcome them. Just maybe some day it will wake somebody up!

To paraphrase the old cliché, you can lead a jackass to water, but you can’t make him drink is clearly appropriate for most of the Wildlife commissioners. When the commissioners don’t know what to do, which is on a regular basis, they form a committee. One of the 12 committees is the Legislative Committee.

 

In the 2005 legislative session, HUNTER’S ALERT and Nevada Hunters Association sponsored a bill to audit a very small part of Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW). The bill passed with the help of Assemblyman Jerry Claborn. Jerry realized how badly NDOW was being mismanaged for many years. Getting the bill passed was not easy as NDOW had their favorite puppet, Larry Johnson there testifying against the bill. Larry’s feeble excuse was that NDOW couldn’t afford the audit. As usual, Larry didn’t know what he was talking about as there was no additional cost to perform this audit. Larry failed to realize that if you don’t stand up for what is right, you are wrong.

It keeps getting worse for Nevada deer hunters. Of course, the Wildlife commissioners are oblivious to this problem. They could care less about our declining deer numbers. That is a fact.

In the 2001 legislative session, Assembly Bill 291 became law. The bill was sponsored by HUNTER’S ALERT and Nevada Hunters Association. Not another so-called sportsmen’s organization was there to support this bill. A.B. 291 enacted a $3.00 fee on all tag applications. This money was to be dedicated exclusively for wildlife damage control (wdc) formerly called predator control. This money has amounted to over $300,000 a year for wildlife damage control. Wdc is something that neither NDOW nor any of the Wildlife commissioners wanted. However, by law, they were in charge of how the money was to be spent.

“Gotta have more money, gotta have more money!” This is NDOW director Terry Crawforth’s cry to the Wildlife commissioners. Of course, the commissioners buy into it without any questions. What Terry Crawforth really meant was, “Gotta have more money because of my mismanagement.”

As noted in the Draft Minutes of the May 14, 2005 Wildlife Commission meeting, then Chairman Tommy Ford had this to say about departing Wildlife commissioner Bill Bradley. Commissioner Bradley will be missed when the legislature reconvenes and he (Ford) asked him to stay on the Legislative Committee and he agreed to do so. 

The people in Bud Sonnentag’s article, “Ten people who have screwed up hunting in Nevada”, are the reason we have lost the majority of our deer. In addition, they are responsible for the mess that has been created in Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW). All of the people Bud listed were in a position to make NDOW a better agency. They had the power to do this but they chose not to.

 

The question is “Why”? Was it stupidity, selfishness or power? Was it not caring or being protected by an elected official? Each of these individuals failed the sportsmen in their own way. Let’s review them and see what category they fell into.

Number 1: Willie Molini. He was being protected by Governor Bob Miller and Senator Bill Raggio. For this reason he could do whatever he wanted and nothing (like termination) was going to happen to him. He was right.

Number 2: Governor Bob Miller. The former governor should go in the “care less” category. He could care less about sportsmen’s concerns. If it wasn’t a basketball, it wasn’t
considered a sport to him.

Number 3: Terry Crawforth. Another individual who could be placed in the “care less” category. He could not have cared less about the Game Bureau. All that mattered to him was more law enforcement.

Number 4: Governor Kenny Guinn. Strictly power. As governor no one is going to do anything to him other than print the truth about his not caring about sportsmen’s issues.

Number 5: Senator Bill Raggio. Absolutely the worst abuse of power an individual could have. His attitude was “ to hell with everyone and everything. I‘m the lord and master.” To sportsmen, he was the supreme bad politician.

Currently there is a best-selling book by Bernard Goldberg titled One Hundred People who are Screwing up America. The book names these people and the destruction they have done. Playing on this theme, it occurred to me, why not let all Nevadans, especially sportsmen, know who screwed up this state’s wonderful deer herd by exposing the corrupt public officials who were and are responsible. Through research and investigation I have settled on these following ten as the most notorious culprits of destruction.

Kayne Robinson replaced Charlton Heston as president of the NRA (National Rifle Association) on April 28, 2003. He is a straight forward, tell-it-like-it-is sort of guy. In the Shot Business magazine (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) of January, 2004 he gave an interview and one of the questions asked of him was “What do you see as the barriers to the continuation of the shooting sports?”  Following is his response in its entirety to this question.  We will then compare his concerns to what Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) is doing.