An Appeal to the Connecticut Sporting Community
In 2014, the Department of Environmental Protection was combined with the Department of Energy rendering the DEP a mostly ineffective entity. We now have approximately half of the conservation officers in the field than we did in 2006. Programs have been cut; access has been lost, and we have to pay for a trout stamp because the state legislature claims that there is not enough money to fund the hatcheries. This letter has nothing to do with party politics and is solely meant to educate and motivate the community into taking action to restore what is rightfully ours.
So, what are you going to do about it? Will you continue to allow the deterioration of the hunting and fishing in our state? Will you take the attitude that this will just fall on deaf ears? The state currently wants to cut another $500,000 plus out of the fisheries budget and it has been suggested that they pull this periodically and all we need to do is make a stink and they won’t take half a million. But so much more than that has been lost over the past twenty years.
Last year fisheries license revenue was $4.1 million but only $3.5 million was allocated to fisheries. The current budget cut on the table is $500,000. So, realistically we’re losing more than a million. Additionally, it is estimated that Encon officers not checking licenses is costing the DEP and fisheries more than $2 million annually.
Its high time for the Connecticut sporting community to push back. In 2024, the state legislature had $1.3 billion dollars of your tax money to hand out to people who are here illegally under federal law, had money to install feminine hygiene product dispensers in public men’s rooms, took money from your electric bills to pay for people who can’t pay their bills, and wants to give people who are on strike unemployment benefits etc. And don’t forget about the casino and marijuana revenues. But they can’t properly fund or run the Department of Environmental Protection? There’s not enough for hunting and fishing? For nature? For land conservation??
The lack of Conservation Officers is very concerning for several reasons. Safety is a major concern especially as we need to implement a bear hunting season. And as far as fishing is concerned, the state legislature bases the amount of money allocated to the fisheries on the number of licenses sold. No one is out there checking hunting or fishing licenses on a consistent basis, there is little presence from DEEP and so there are a ton of people out there fishing without licenses as well as many who do buy licenses and fish for trout but don’t want to pay for a trout stamp, so they don’t. So, the state legislature is basing its funding numbers on license sales in a state where there is no one checking them, rendering their calculations completely inaccurate. In other words, license sales are not correctly representing the number of people fishing out there. The conservation officers that we presently have work hard to try and keep things in check but they are overburdened and oftentimes ineffective because they are unable to address issues fast enough. What good is having laws if there is no one to enforce them?
How many times throughout the course of your life have you been checked for a license by a conservation officer? I have been checked in every other state that I have ever fished in. In Connecticut, I may have been checked a half dozen times over the course of my 61 years and I have always spent an immense amount of time on the water.
DEEP Fisheries say that they are being transparent by posting where and when fish are being stocked but all this really accomplishes is to allow poachers to know where and when to go take fish. (in some instances, with drag nets at night). Due to the lack of presence from conservation officers, hunting and fishing license sales are down but poaching, in both inland and marine fisheries, is at an all-time high. The same is true for hunting.
Currently, there is a bill on the table to bring ENCON under the jurisdiction of the state police. This will only serve to make a bad situation worse. The bill would separate ENCON both physically and administratively from departments such as hunting, fishing, trapping and boating. This is yet another big step toward weakening our outdoor sporting activities and the DEEP fisheries and hunting itself.
Connecticut’s population has grown substantially over the past 20 years but the Department of Environmental Protection has been reduced to a shadow of what it used to be. If anything, the department should have been expanded and not reduced. So, we need many more than the 80 plus CO’s that we had in 2006 as the state’s population has increased. The state biologists need their budgets and summer help restored. We need the department to become effective again. The current proposal to make ENCON a part of the state police is not a good idea and like the combination of DEP and DOE, it is not done in other states.
There is strength in numbers and there are a lot of hunters and fishers in this state as well as people who are just environmentally conscious. If we all politely demand that the state legislature restore what is rightfully ours, they will have no choice but to do so.
All hunters, fishers and other concerned individuals need to hammer the state legislature with a letter writing campaign like never before. Bombard their offices with phone calls, fill up their inboxes with emails. Carbon-copy all senators and state reps, not just your own. Carbon-copy the head of the DEEP, the head of fisheries, the governor and the attorney general. The entire whole of the legislature must be made aware that we will not stand for this anymore. The Department of Energy and the Department of Environmental Protection need to become separate entities again. The disastrous combination of those two departments is an enormous conflict of interest as we derive our energy from the environment. Biologists and Conservation officers need to go back to negotiating with private landowners again to allow hunting and fishing on their lands.
All of this is useless without enforcement of the law so I would add here that a conservation court/commission, which would convene as needed (bi monthly, bi weekly, depending on the demand), is necessary in this state. Without it, Conservation officers writing tickets is useless. There is a need for a court to uphold conservation law so that these cases are not just dismissed. The amount of revenue that would be generated if all anglers bought licenses combined with that collected from people illegally trapping, fishing, hunting and poaching would be substantial.
So, I ask you all once again, what are you going/willing to do about this? The state legislators are public servants who work for you. You pay their salaries. Will you demand what is rightfully yours or will you allow them to keep chipping away at our outdoor sports programs until there is nothing left? What will be left for your children and your grandchildren and what about their children? It’s up to you to take action now.
Attached below are this letter, an attachment of bulletpoints for use in writing letters, as well as a spreadsheet that includes our Connecticut legislators and other government officials.