More positive news for california sportsman???

[hntnnut]

I just received this in an email. Maybe there is hope.

NRA Takes Action to Reform and Improve California Fish & Game Commission Operations/Oversight, Ethics and Transparency to Combat Radicals Promoting an Anti-Hunting Agenda






The NRA is working on behalf of hunters to counter the efforts of radical anti-hunting groups that are seeking to make the California Fish & Game Commission promote an increasingly anti-hunter agenda. One of the issues that the NRA is currently challenging is the Commission’s lack of sufficient “conflict of interest” disclosure rules.



The current rules are unclear, and only expressly mandate the reporting of contributions to Commissioners by “for-profit” businesses. These inadequate rules appear to allow Commissioners to keep secret any income, gifts and other contributions from the types of “non-profit” advocacy groups that regularly lobby the Commission to advance their anti-hunting agendas. This loophole in the Commission’s disclosure rules invites abuse. Commissioners should be held to the same financial/compensation reporting standards as elected officials and legislative staffers.



As a result of the NRA’s investigation into reports of conflicts of interest and financial compensation irregularities, the NRA filed a Petition asking to amend the Commission’s disclosure rules to prevent secret non-profit “green money” from influencing any Commissioner’s decisions. This petition seeks to unequivocally mandate that Commissioners disclose all “contributions” received, including those from so-called “animal-rights” advocacy groups claiming “non-profit” status. It does not carve out any exceptions for particular kinds of “non-profits” and it would apply to all Commissioners.



Additionally, the NRA filed a separate Petition that seeks to require all Commissioners to sign the Governor’s updated Incompatible Activities Statement, which is a pledge to refrain from engaging in certain behavior. The goal of this petition is to put Commissioners on the record that they will not engage in any activities that would need to be kept secret, especially not in ways that could unfairly benefit radical anti-hunting groups.



The Commission received both NRA petitions at its October 8 meeting. At its December 3 meeting, after hearing from NRA representatives, the Commission agreed with its staff’s recommendation and unanimously decided to accept both NRA petitions. This means Commission staff will be evaluating the petitions and making recommendations on what, if anything, to adopt to address the problem. The NRA will work with them during this process to get the best result for hunters.



So-called animal “rights” groups have been trying to influence and dominate access to the Commission through the recently created Wildlife Resources Committee (WRC), which replaced the now-disbanded Al Taucher’s Preserving Hunting and Sport Fishing Opportunities Advisory Committee. The “Taucher Committee” was formed to give various hunting and fishing organizations a forum to meet with Commissioners and Commission staff with the goal of furthering a conservation agenda via increased hunting and fishing opportunities in California. Anti-hunting groups are attempting to undermine the traditional, realistic and historically successful methods of conserving and managing wildlife in favor of an unbalanced approach to game management that would inevitably lead to most hunting becoming unsustainable.



The adoption of the NRA petitions will directly protect your right to hunt. When fully implemented, they will diminish attempts by anti-hunting groups from unduly financially influencing the Fish & Game Commissioners, Commission staff and the activities of the Commission and the WRC. These measures will also enable the NRA and general public to monitor and counter the attempts of anti-hunting radicals to influence and undermine the efforts to promote and protect hunting opportunity in California.



The NRA is continuing to investigate rumors of undue influence of anti-hunting radicals on the activities of the Fish & Game Commission.



You can assist in the fight to defend hunter’s rights in California courts by donating to the NRA Legal Action Project today. It is also imperative that hunters continuously monitor the Commission agenda and continue to challenge any attempt by the anti-hunters to influence the Commission to abandon its main purpose of preserving hunting and fishing opportunities.

 

[Beendare]

Good post. SCI and NRA have been doing a great job fighting the anti hunting leaning commission that only got worse when the president Dan Richards legally shot the mtn lion in Idaho...was getting pressure....and told them to "stick it" and was ousted. He was replaced with an animal rights advocate. Pair that with the powers running F&G being notoriously animal rights leaning and its no wonder the mess we are in here in Ca.