Outdoor Notes : DFG Fishing in New Waters for More Revenue

The Department of Fish and Game should get general tax fund support because its activities benefit all Californians, Director Jack Parnell told lawmakers in Sacramento this week.

Parnell said the DFG can’t get along anymore just on license fees from hunters and anglers.

“The department’s mandate is not fishing and hunting,” he told a joint hearing of four legislative committees. “The department’s mandate, as I read the law, is to be involved in meticulous management of fish and wildlife and their habitat.”

He added that if that mandate leads to a “harvestable surplus” of fish and wildlife, then the department can allow fishing and hunting within its regulations.

The department has historically been funded almost exclusively with money from fishing and hunting licenses. But it had to borrow $2 million this year from the state’s general fund. The DFG raised fishing and hunting license fees for 1986.

Last month, the Legislature’s auditor general said that the department failed to collect about $2.8 million in taxes and license fees because of poor administrative practices. The largest loss related to incorrect levying of taxes on commercial fishing operations, including licensed wholesalers and dealers.

Parnell said that California wildlife contributes $6 billion to the state’s economy each year because it is an integral part of tourism. Besides administering fishing and hunting regulations, he said, the DFG deals with endangered species, oil spills, chemicals, environmental impacts and other actions that benefit the general public.

He added: “We cannot continue to balance the department’s budget on the backs of hunters and anglers. It’s simply not fair.”

Sen. H.L. Richardson (R-Arcadia), a hunter, said that the state has not been encouraging increased hunting, as other states do. The number of California hunters has decreased from 764,000 in 1971 to 449,000 in 1984, he said.

“Other states have programs to expand hunting. We haven’t had any programs in California to encourage hunting. On the contrary, we have had programs to discourage hunting,” he said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this week that no more steelhead trout will be produced at the Coleman National Fish Hatchery in Shasta County until whirling disease, a parasitic fish infection, is eradicated at the hatchery.

About 2,700 spawner-size steelheads will be killed and donated to Indian tribes and social welfare programs. The parasite poses no health problems to humans. Whirling disease outbreaks at some state-run trout hatcheries in recent years has resulted in the loss of significant numbers of trout.

Coleman officials have offered 1.3 million steelhead fingerlings to the state Department of Fish and Game for possible release in landlocked waters previously exposed to the parasite.

A banner day of waterfowl shooting Dec. 11 at the state’s Wister Unit at the Salton Sea was reported by Cris Gonzales, unit manager. In prime waterfowl hunting weather--temperatures in the 30s and 40s--352 hunters bagged 980 ducks and 349 geese. It was the best shooting day at Wister since Jan. 2, 1982.

Briefly

The Angeles National Forest office reminds forest visitors that the cutting of Christmas trees is not allowed, nor is the gathering of more than 10 pine cones per person without a permit. . . . For the 38th consecutive year, the Pasadena Casting Club is conducting a six-week fly-tying class, beginning Jan. 15, 7:30 p.m., at the Pasadena Civil Defense Center. Also, the club recently awarded its 1985 Herb Troebner Memorial Conservation award to Barrett McInerney, the attorney who led the legal team that forced the Department of Water and Power to maintain minimum stream flows in the Eastern Sierra’s Rush Creek. . . . The Ohio-based Wildlife Legislative Fund of America reports that a lawsuit filed recently in New York against the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation over a trapping issue threatens trapping and hunting rights in every state. . . . Glendale, Ariz., fisherman Pat Gates, using 90-pound-test line, caught 35- and 40-pound flathead catfish on successive days at the Verde River, just below Horseshoe Dam. . . . The DFG reminds fishing tournament directors that new laws going into effect Jan. 1 affect the operation of fishing tournaments.