OUTDOOR NOTES / RICH ROBERTS : DFG Director Starts to Get a Grip on Job

Boyd Gibbons, confessing to “great ignorance” of the situation, was given two mandates when Gov. Pete Wilson appointed him director of the California Department of Fish and Game six months ago: Establish priorities and create an adequate source of dependable funding.

Gibbons is now “a lot smarter--or at least better informed,” he says, and has an opinion on how the DFG must work. If its mission is to sustain the state’s natural resources for all the people--not just fishermen and hunters, as in the past--then all of the people will have to pay for it. And they must invest in the future, for their children.

“We have a natural constituency in those who hunt and fish,” Gibbons said recently in Sacramento. “Over history, hunters and fishermen have paid the large share. We also have a huge public out there that cares a lot about the environment and the natural world. This department serves all the people of California. We improve and protect habitat for all sorts of creatures. Deer are appreciated by people who don’t hunt.

“We need to reach those people. In terms of funding, we ought to look at it that way. This is the way it’s done in the state of Missouri, and they have been able to fund their department quite adequately.”

Gibbons wears colorful bow ties and quotes Aldo Leopold on conservation and Aristotle on philosophy to bolster his opinions. He comes on as a visionary but has made his presence felt--most notably with his recent controversial decision to protect salmon runs in the Sacramento Delta by ceasing to stock striped bass, which he perceived as their predators.

“This whole question of water and the movement of water and the condition of fish has continued to occupy a great deal of my interest and time,” Gibbons said. “Almost every economic decision has environmental consequences and almost every environmental decision has economic consequences. Almost all have social consequences.”

Gibbons believes that broadening the DFG’s base beyond a declining number of hunters and fishermen could solve several problems, economic and social. He said he particularly enjoyed the DFG’s recent Free Fishing Day.

“There were biologists, wardens. We got out on the Capitol lawn with these little children. I was fly-casting with ‘em. They loved it.

“I’d like to do that sort of thing in inner cities, to bring the fish to the people--children, particularly, to expose children and families that don’t have that connection with the natural world. There’s nothing like having a fish on your line, and a child that feels that is hooked-- just like the fish.

“I had the great advantage of a grandfather who loved to fish and hunt. To be in that natural world, to see quail flush in front of you, to see a bass suck a big plug off the surface and feel that wonderful magic moment when a fish is on your line, that twangs my neurons more than anything.

“If somebody grows up in a neighborhood or in a family where there isn’t any of that, it’s like (not having) music.”

Briefly

OBITUARY--Burt Twilegar, 75, founder and former publisher and editor-in-chief of Western Outdoors News, died Sunday after a 10-year fight with cancer. Twilegar started WON with Ed Harding in 1953 and also was outdoors editor of the L.A. Examiner until 1958. He is survived by his wife Gloria, of San Clemente, son Robert, who is publisher of WON, and two daughters. Services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at Pacific View Memorial Park, Corona del Mar. Visitation is from 2-8 p.m. today.

JURISPRUDENCE--Under new regulations, fishermen may be fined up to $675 for fishing without a license. The minimum fine is $250, but courts are routinely adding 170% in penalty assessments. If a cited angler can prove he had a license that wasn’t in his possession, he might get off for $50. Still, estimates are that 24-47% of all anglers don’t have licenses.

ECONOMICS--A state move to merge the destitute Department of Parks and Recreation with the economically sound Department of Boating and Waterways may be dying. But the Budget Conference Committee last week tapped B&W;’s cash register for another $27 million. That means a total of $52.7 million of boaters’ fuel taxes and registration fees have gone into the state’s general fund this fiscal year, leaving the cupboard bare for loans and grants for boating facility improvements, such as a proposed expansion of the Marina del Rey seawall.

NOTEWORTHY--The Cross-Country Classic International Hang Gliding Championships started this week at Bishop and will run through July 6. . . . The Department of Fish and Game planned this week to install an artificial reef made from 10,000 tons of quarry rock off southernmost San Diego County at 160 feet. . . . When the DFG canceled the stocking of striped bass in the Sacramento delta, it planned to divert them to Silverwood Lake. But the department changed its mind when learning that the lake level will be drawn down for maintenance work this summer. . . . The International Game Fish Assn. is considering approval of an all-tackle record for Atlantic blue marlin of 1,402 pounds 2 ounces, taken by Paulo Roberto Amorim at Victoria, Brazil.