Oct. 2007 - Volume 68, Issue 10
Search Conmag
In this issue
NextGEN Departments
Making the Rules
The path of Wildlife Code regulations runs through Missouri’s citizens.
On a cold night in January what could be better than attending a public meeting on deer hunting? The Department of Conservation was holding the meeting to discuss potential deer regulation changes. As you would expect, the room in Piedmont was packed with a mix of deer hunters and onlookers.
A gentleman in a co-op cap and blue bibs sat quietly in the second row through more than two hours of dialogue. Finally he raised his hand. “Why can’t you use a .410 shotgun with a slug to hunt deer? You let people use a .40 caliber muzzleloader, and the 410 is a .41 caliber.”
I had heard a lot of ideas for change that evening. Some were just not feasible, some would require a lot of thought, discussions and number crunching, but this one was nothing but logical. The only reason a .410 slug was not allowed, I had to admit to him, was because nobody had thought to ask us to make it legal.
For most of my 30 years with the Department of Conservation I have been tied in one way or another to the process of setting hunting regulations. First, I was a biologist making hunting season recommendations, then for many years I was a supervisor of the biologists that made hunting season recommendations.
Our authority for enacting regulations is the foundation of the constitutional mandate that Missourians passed in 1936. That constitutional mandate formed a Conservation Commission and gave them the charge of “protecting and managing the fish, forests and wildlife of the state.” The Conservation Commission has always fulfilled this charge with the utmost seriousness.
And, any time the Commission limits personal choice through regulations they require good—no, very good—reasoning.
About This Article
Author
ERIC KURZEJESKI has worked on regulations issues for most of his 30 years with MDC, but come fall, you’ll find him in a tree stand. His wife, Lori, suggested changing his name to “Sits-in-Tree.”
