Achieving Funding Needs for Fishery Resources Management and Angler Access

Each year, between license fees and federal excise taxes, anglers and boaters in the U.S. provide over a billion dollars for fishery conservation and angling and boating access. This major investment in fishery conservation and management is paid by only 10 percent of the Nation’s population and only 18 percent of its outdoor recreationists. Maintaining this current user-pay, public-benefit model and obtaining the needed additional funding from other outdoor recreationists is a major challenge to our standard of management. To meet the challenge of funding fishery programs there are several key ingredients, including safeguarding existing fund sources, marketing fishing opportunity, responding to changing demographics, and seeking innovative funding mechanisms.