Proposed Legislation Would Gut Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission

 

A junior senator in Kentucky has proposed a bill - SB 3 - that would move the Fish and Wildlife Commission under the Department of Agriculture and give appointment authority to the Commissioner of Agriculture. 

We need your help to stop the bill in its tracks. 

SB3 would ultimately lead to the violation of a well-established state constitutional law regarding the appointment of commission members and place the commission in an agency that does not prioritize the conservation of state game, fish, and non-game species.

Conservation and sportsman groups across the state have said that this bill is the most dangerous piece of legislation that pertains to hunting, fishing, trapping, and public lands heritage since 2022, when the Legislature proposed a very similar bill that was defeated in the House of Representatives. 

A Fish and Wildlife Commission stacked with agriculture-first representatives by the Commissioner of Agriculture would likely increase bag limits and lengthen seasons, devastating wildlife populations that took nine decades to recover. 

The state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission was created in 1952 based on the founding principle, that, “the system was created by Kentucky Sportsmen to ensure that both managerial and financial control of the state’s wildlife resources stayed out of political control.”  

While agriculture is important to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, resident hunters, anglers, and trappers who pay for licenses and permits, and who are responsible for federal Pittman-Robertson funding for the state, deserve a Fish and Wildlife Commission devoted to the best interest of the resource as guided by the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. 

Help keep politics out of wildlife management in Kentucky, and ensure that the Fish and Game Commission continues to work in the best interest of the sportsmen and women in the Bluegrass State.

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