I would say a large chunk of the 60-70k applicants know. They get mailers, emails, deadline reminders, social media posts, etc… No, Nevada doesn’t do a global advertising campaign to promote the tags, but the information is in-front of anyone who applies in Nevada or is looking for it. The cost of doing a giant ad campaign could easily outweigh the revenue he generated, and like I said the moneys generated are only ear marked for conservation.
The auctions have always been a point of contention because it’s an opportunity that 99.9% can’t people can’t afford. But the reality is it the money raised off of 8 auction rags would be hard to make up for if removed or converted to raffles. Here in Nevada if you converted the auction to raffle you’d be asking for people to fork over another $200 to apply for the other raffle tags. And they still wouldn’t make up for the auction money, unless you added a lot more applicants.
Another thing people always say just raise tag costs, but that increase in tag costs wouldn't go to the heritage fund, it would go to the department. The moneys these tags raise is earmarked for conservation only, a vastly overlooked fact by many who oppose them.
Majority of the states out west have a raffle version of the auction tag. So, your comment regarding adding more advocates is a moot point. There are plenty of opportunities to try to win a draw for one of these premium tags. Except if you live outside of AZ, as they now do resident only raffles.
It is about money, that was the point of the auction/raffle tags! To raise as much money for conservation with only a handful of tags. The money raised at auction/raffle gets matched 3:1 by federal dollars from PRA. That is serious money, where 1.36 mill can turn into 4 mill or more depending on the projects. The amount of predator reduction, water projects, planting, transplants, etc, you can with that extra money is huge.
