Fish And Boat Commission Presents Annual Report To House Game And Fisheries Committee

Dr. Douglas Austen, Executive Director of the Fish and Boat Commission, this week presented his 2008 Annual Report to the House Game and Fisheries Committee highlighting accomplishments and outlining issues, like funding for the Commission.

 

Dr. Austen highlighted many items in his summary of the annual report, here are a few--

 

-- Economic benefit of fishing in Pennsylvania is estimated to be over $1.65 billion accounting for nearly 18,000 jobs and generating about $120 million in state and local taxes. The economic benefit of boating in the state is estimated to be $1.7 billion.

 

-- The Commission is developing a new 5-year Strategic Plan with the input of outside individuals, including more than 1,100 who recently participated in an electronic survey. Part of the Plan includes the development of a new Trout Management Plan.

 

-- A recent survey of trout anglers found 61 percent release the trout they catch, 93 percent fish in trout-stocked waters at least half the time, 49 percent typically travel no more than 15 miles to trout fish and 84 percent of trout anglers were satisfied with trout fishing in the state.

 

-- Recreational boating accident fatalities were down in 2008 to 8, but lower than the 10-year average of 12.

 

-- The Commission, along with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council completed a series of regional meetings on fishing and boating access needs and opportunities in support of a Statewide Access Plan for the state which should be released in the coming months.

 

-- The Commission has tripled the number of permit reviews it completes for Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling dealing with its concern about water use by drillers.

 

-- The Commission is working hard to urge anglers to buy licenses every year through its electronic point-of-sale system. A recent survey found that only 10 percent of anglers bought fishing licenses in each of the last five years. The electronic sales system allowed the Commission to identify those who did not by a license and developed a direct mail campaign to target those anglers resulting in an additional 2,500 licences being purchased-- over 11 percent of the target customers.

 

-- The Board of the Commission recently adopted new funding principles it would like to see adopted, among them an annual incremental fishing and boating license system, rather than adopted significant increases every 7-10 years, adding a modes access and habitat fee to the cost of a fishing license and developing special pricing packages for combinations of licenses and stamps.

 

-- Dr. Austen noted the Commission owns16 high hazard dams that are estimated to cost $74 million to bring into compliance with current standards.

 

A copy of the Commission's 2008 Annual Report is available online.

 

The Majority Chair of the Committee is Rep. Edward Staback (D-Schuylkill) and the Minority Chair is Rep. Craig Dally (R-Northampton).