No disrespect but you are misinformed. This is all publicly accessible information:
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is a nationally recognized leader in conservation, outdoor recreation and wildlife management. The agency manages 42 state parks, all of Colorado's wildlife, more than 300 state wildlife areas and a host of recreational programs. CPW issues hunting and fishing...
cpw.state.co.us
Information on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
www.adfg.alaska.gov
As someone who manages millions of dollars annually, $88M or even $100M is a shoe string budget to run any agency that size with that much responsibility. Everything costs money and not all projects that are legislatively approved satisfy what the external public thinks they need 100% of the time. Does government waste happen?Sure. It happens in every state and federally to varying degrees. That being said, individuals upset over loss of opportunity or dissatisfied with legislative spending tend to dream up ways to vilifying state agencies and governments as if they are amassing great sums of money. But trust me, no one at WGFD is sitting back stroking a white cat, laughing maniacally while they stack their NR gold coin. It’s not a matter of WY refusing to fund fish and game with state funds. The sad fact is that Wyoming has significantly lost its ability to generate revenue due the steady loss of the mining and fossil fuel industry. Add to that we only have roughly 500k residents that not all of which are tax payers. There is not enough people and industry to tax and create the necessary revenue to provide essential services and infrastructure for the entire state. As a result, almost all state agencies that provide these resources have seen severe budget cuts in recent years. I don’t disagree that the state should establish a state funded trust to alleviate the pressure on WGFD so that it can better prioritize but the precedent has already been set and there simply isn’t the funding to spare. This is not at all a dramatization but a harsh reality—do you really want to tell someone’s grandmother, living well bellow the poverty line as most residents do, that her essential state paid services have been cut because the state needed to find the money to support NR hunters? If the answer is yes then you can consider yourself part of the problem.