(11-3-2006) Our mid-October report asserted: "In apparent disregard for a law it once heralded as a triumph, the Ehrlich administration has reduced acreage of state property available to sportsmen for hunting and at the same time ignored a deadline for its Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to report on land it manages."
The DNR 'no net loss' report has now been made available. This one-page document (available here as a downloadable PDF image) is apparently the result of a 30 minute effort by officials that was begun a month late, and created only after our inquiries alerted the administration to its gaffe.
The report's history suggests that 'no net loss' legislation was simply political pandering to sportsmen, done by officials who believe sportsmen's interests are of such a high priority that they didn't even begin to follow their own law until called on it. Their resulting scramble didn't produce an inventory of huntable property - it produced a half-page of text to satisfy the letter of the law, even if not its intent. Sportsmen still don't have a compendium of state properties sufficient to use as a guide to what is available to hunt, much less to audit the state's compliance. (The much-vaunted law's actual language is available HERE, at the legislative service's site.)
Officials who responded to our requests backpeddled from their original pronouncements at the time legislation was passed, and now indicate their belief is that the law doesn't actually require an "acre for acre replacement" of property - in other words, they see it not so much as a law as a "goal." They nevertheless point out that this year's report indicates a net gain of huntable property.
Commenting on the Savage River State Forest situation (our first report on this appeared on October 17) these same officials indicate the 50 acres taken out of hunting in October (in order to accommodate the commercial interests of a vacation lodge that is landlocked in the state property) are presently not being replaced, though they go on to predict that next year's "no net loss" report will nevertheless show a net gain of huntable property because of next year's acquisitions elsewhere in the state. (They further comment that the Savage River's posting as a "no weapons" zone - which would have disrupted hunting on adjacent property too - was done in error, and they have given directions for resources police to interpret this only as a "no hunting" zone. That means hunters are free to carry unloaded firearms through the properties in order to reach other huntable land.)