Sunday, July 11, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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How would you react if men, women, people who didn’t own property or any other Nevada groupings were summarily denied the ability to vote for their government representatives?
We have a similar disenfranchisement of most Nevadans with the Nevada Wildlife Commission. Its membership, defined in state statute, reflects demographic realities from 100 years ago, when the state contained fewer than 100,000 people — most living in rural counties. The 2020 U.S. Census reports over 3.1 million Nevadans, with the preponderance in urbanized Washoe and Clark counties.
Despite less than 5% of Nevadans purchasing killing licenses to hunt, trap and fish wildlife belonging to all Nevadans under the public trust doctrine, five members out of nine on the Wildlife Commission are required to have purchased such killing licenses in three of the past four years just to qualify for unilateral appointment to the commission by the governor. It is a “pay to play” scheme more often found in corrupt machine politics, not a representative democracy.
Per the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2020 National Agricultural Statistics, there is a combined total of 3,350 farmers and ranchers in Nevada. Yet there are two more seats on the Wildlife Commission devoted to less than a tenth of a percent of the population.
Finally, Nevada Revised Statutes calls for one “conservation” member and one “general public” member on the commission; they regularly go along with the other seven commissioners in promoting enhanced killing of the public’s wildlife.
Even when one or both of these members are infrequently inclined to oppose new or expanded killing seasons, they are overwhelmingly defeated by the killing-focused majority. The operative strategy of the Wildlife Commission and its 263 enablers in the state Department of Wildlife is hunter convenience, opportunity and success.
Let’s ask ourselves: Why would those intent on killing wildlife for amusement and profit instinctively or exclusively know or care what is best for wildlife’s long-term future, except to set it up for the next killing season’s licensees?
Erratically disrupting wildlife families with indiscriminate killing does not remotely resemble conservation; it only perpetuates destruction of public assets without just compensation to the public from the killing community. Wildlife killing suppresses extensive and growing wildlife watcher tourists, who create tangible economic benefit for rural and urban communities. Effectively, indiscriminate killing of our wildlife is an illegal taking of public property.
An equally outdated flaw in the state statute governing the board restricts where commissioners reside. Only three of the nine commissioners can live in Clark County, which contains over 70% of the state’s population — another example of inadequate representation
Rural state Sen. Pete Goicoechea unsuccessfully proposed Senate Bill 78 in the 2021 legislative session. If passed, it would have added a hunter guide — hunters often employ paid guides to boost their chances of killing success rather than relying on their own skills — and one local elected official likely lacking any science training to the commission, while allowing up to two commissioners from the 15 rural counties with fewer than 100,000 people. It would have further diminished commission representation for the non-killing public and urbanites, while stacking the deck with more wildlife killers.
Because the Wildlife Commission is an executive branch agency, concerned citizens have approached the governor on multiple occasions to open a dialog on how we can fix the egregious lack of non-killing representation on the Wildlife Commission and the individual county advisory boards, which employ the same one-sided mindset that leads to inequitable decisions.
The overwhelming majority of Nevadans do not support indiscriminate killing of their wildlife for amusement or profit, per the recent, carefully conducted Nevada Wildlife Values study. Unfortunately, the governor and his staff haven’t responded to requests from advocates for a formal meeting on the subject.
The two-day Wildlife Commission meeting held in June in Winnemucca featured a recurring obstacle of no Zoom meeting connectivity for people who couldn’t take the time or spend the money to travel if they wished to actively participate. The remote locations often chosen for these periodic meetings starkly demonstrate just how out of touch and disinterested these gubernatorial appointees are in representing or even hearing from all Nevadans.
Here’s a telling example of biased commission deliberations. Two studies were sponsored and presented at the June meeting by the commission’s support staff in the state Department of Wildlife. The studies covered the long-declining fortunes of sage grouse populations afflicting 11 western states.
The sage grouse has been on the precipice of endangered species designation for years. Despite this information, the same agenda contained a reauthorization request for more sage grouse hunting this year. The commissioners voted unanimously to approve fall hunting seasons in six counties of Northern and Southern Nevada, exacerbating the problem. The recreational killing will also occur in designated wildlife refuges, places where wildlife is supposed to be able to seek a break from human killers so their numbers can recover via undisturbed procreation.
We need our governor to reform the broken and unrepresentative state Wildlife Commission and county advisory boards into bodies proportionately representative of all Nevadans (non-killers as well as ethical hunters), if our wildlife species stand a chance of escaping extinction in Nevada’s harsh climatic conditions.
Why is this important to people? We need a healthy, functioning natural world to support human life on Earth. Mass, indiscriminate slaughter of wildlife that often leads to extinction disrupts nature’s innate ability and genius in balancing itself without human intervention. Nevada can and must do better for its wildlife that can’t speak, vote, lobby or make campaign contributions.
Fred Voltz resides in Clark County and works in commercial real estate. He is a member of the Nevada Wildlife Alliance, and wrote this column in association with the organization.
