2021-02-23 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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or not and I have a conflicted report as to whether or not they can enforce that, that doesn't help you the day an officer wants to enforce it but what I do is I send them to DOCARE — the point of contact I was given from the enforcement arm is Andy Ford he was gonna be the guy kind of involved with the Mile Marker 16 Range and I just tell people ask him directly what the scoop is because I've gotten mixed messages — that doesn't help but that's the best I can do because I don't do the enforcement of the area but as far as it being taken out by the Land Board as a range — it is but it needs to actually — if you want to make a push — it has to be executive ordered out of the Forest Reserve — it's a process that many pieces of land get caught up in — I don't know where they get hung up — but it happens with a lot of unencumbered land as well. ?: Ian, so I want to make this kind of clear cause it — Richard said it's not a designated hunting area anymore. So is it - stay at a hunting area or is that designated as a range? IC: Well, the Board intended to designate it as a range — there's map showing a safety zone behind it defining the parameters of the range — but what I'm saying is even if the Board did it — it has to be executive ordered out of the Forest Reserve. So the argument is two -fold — that DOCARE is citing people cause they don't have a hunting license but that's a weird argument because technically you're not supposed to be in there with a gun anyway during the week days if you're claiming that it's a hunting area. Kean — you got a different response about a little bit about safety — I got a response a little bit like hunter education [unclear] some level of assurance to enforcement that they've gone through some training — been a long time since I went to Hunter Ed but I don't recall handling a firearm very much in Hunters' Ed — so I don't know if that's a real good — you could get as much from an NRA beginner's course as you would from — more actually — than you would from hunter's education so I kind of feel like that's not a very good reason to require a hunting license. The other reason I was given was that the sales from licenses where PR generates it's funds — not the only source of revenue for Pittman -Robertson — the monies that went into helping to develop the back berms there and that's what I was told — hunters generate that monies but that's not necessarily true because ammunition sales, binoculars, other things go into funding Pittman - Robertson funds so I still am just telling people to just call the Division of 22