Izaak Walton League Wins Visible Success

Wood Duck nesting boxes are commonly seen in local area marshes.

The conical sheet metal cone below the box is to thwart nest predators — raccoons, possums, skunks, and snakes.

Most of these wood duck nest boxes are installed and maintained by the Izaak Walton League, whose national headquarters happens to be nearby.

The Izaak Walton League was, and is, a leading environmental organization specializing in clean water and riparian area protection.

While the Izaak Walton League is a conservation organization, it’s also an organization that understands the importance of hunting to conservation.

As the web site of the League notes:

Hunting is also about conservation. The majority of funding for state fish and wildlife agencies comes directly from hunters, anglers, and shooting sports enthusiasts. Hunters pay their way through licenses, permits, and other fees ($796 million annually). In addition, every purchase of a box of ammunition, a firearm, or archery gear includes a fee (called an "excise tax") that helps fund state fish and wildlife programs – more than $371 million in 2011 alone. It was sportsmen who developed this ‘user pay’ system. Without these funds, state agencies would effectively cease to operate, which would affect outdoor recreation opportunities for all residents and visitors.

Hunting plays an important part in state wildlife management. Sportsmen help keep wildlife healthy by balancing wildlife populations with available habitat. For example, humans are the only remaining "predators" for white-tailed deer in many parts of the country – an overly populous species that was endangered just a century ago. Restoration programs funded by sportsmen helped this species recover.

These words are not hollow: across the US about 54 million acres of Pittman-Robertson land is under long-term conservation.

This land is bought, long-term leased, and protected by the "Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act," which, since 1937, has imposed a dedicated 11 percent Federal excise tax on long guns, ammunition, and archery equipment, and a 10 percent tax on handguns.

These funds are collected from manufacturers by the Department of the Treasury and are apportioned each year to the States by the Department of the Interior based on a formula that factors in both the total area of the state and the number of licensed hunters in the state.

Want to know more? See >> https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45667.pdf