Virginia Wildlife Demo - 41

more than thirty years of coalition building,
endless proposals and defeated legislation,
bitter disappointment and deteriorating land
use before an unusual opportunity arose and
the conditions, miraculously right to grab it.
In 1936, a ten percent federal excise tax
on sporting guns and ammunition existed on
the books. Congress at the time was in the
process of abolishing such excise taxes, but
sportsmen groups and other conservationists
saw instead an opportunity to propose a diversion rather than a repeal of the tax. e
idea was to divert the proceeds from the tax to
the states for wildlife restoration projects to be
matched on a 3:1 basis with state hunting and
fishing license revenue. e ammunition
companies supported the proposal, and Carl
Shoemaker, former chief of the Oregon Department of Fish and Game, drafted the legislation. Shoemaker enlisted the support of
Senator Key Pittman of Nevada to introduce
the bill in the Senate. On the House side,
Shoemaker approached Congressman A.
Willis Robertson, who had moved to Congress from the Virginia Game Department
four years earlier. When Shoemaker sat down

with Robertson and handed him the bill,
Robertson penciled in 29 words: "...and
which shall include a prohibition against the
diversion of license fees paid by hunters for
any other purpose than the administration of
said State fish and game department." With
those words, Robertson secured the future of
our fish and wildlife legacy. Robertson's work
in Virginia had taught him how capricious
state legislatures could be with their income,
and he wanted to make sure that the science
of fish and wildlife management was taken
out of the political arena. If a state wanted
federal money to help them restore their
wildlife, they had to guarantee their fish and
game department's right to use every dime of
hunting and fishing license revenue to support it. Period.
e Pittman-Robertson (P-R) Federal
Aid to Wildlife Restoration Act sailed
through Congress. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt signed the bill into law on September 2, 1937, turning a deaf ear to protests
from his budget oﬃce insisting that earmarking funds from excise taxes was not in the
country's best interest. Today, on its 75th

Essentially, the only real management tools
ﬁsh and wildlife agencies had at their disposal
were the setting of hunting seasons, bag limits,
and methods of hunting.

anniversary, the program has proved without
a doubt that it has been in the very best of its
country's interest. Its success has been nothing
short of astounding.

When an eﬀective technique for live-trapping wild turkeys was developed in the mid-1950s, Virginia wildlife
biologists began a nearly 40-year eﬀort to restore turkeys to suitable habitat around the state. Today's
estimated population at 150,000 birds supports both a spring and fall season for 60,000 to 70,000 hunters.
www.HuntFishVA.com

http://www.HuntFishVA.com

Virginia Wildlife Demo

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