Dianne L Stallings

Ruidoso News

Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced a nationwide distribution of more than $1.1 billion in revenues generated by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Acts.

All four states in the Service’s Southwest Region have an opportunity to share in the distribution of conservation funding. In 2016, $123,356,617 will be available to the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma and Texas. New Mexico is in line for $20.8 million.

The money supports essential conservation endeavors performed by state fish and game agencies and is derived from excise taxes, a user-pay user-benefit system, paid on gear for fishing, boating, shooting and hunting.

“Hunters, shooters, anglers and boaters have done more to fund essential conservation work than any other group,” Cliff Schleusner, chief of the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program in the Service’s Southwest Region, said. “The Service delivers the money to on-the-ground projects that prove beneficial to fish and wildlife and access to outdoor recreation. The WSFR program has a profound influence on conservation and the economy and our heritage of outdoor pursuits.”

The WSFR Program facilitated impressive conservation partnerships since 1937, service officials said. Over the intervening 79 years, more than $18 billion was generated for the betterment of wildlife, fisheries and boating access. Fishing and hunting license revenues paid to state fish and game agencies by hunters and anglers are used in part to match the conservation funding coming from WSFR, about $5 billion to date.

"This conservation funding goes to where it is needed, on the ground or in the water, for projects that directly benefit fish and wildlife or improve access to outdoor endeavors," officials said.

The four states and their eligible amounts for use in 2016 are Arizona at $25,896,359; New Mexico at $20,830,305; Oklahoma at $23,945,446; and Texas at $52,684,507.

Some projects in New Mexico that exemplify the use of WSFR funding include the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish trapping 47 wild turkeys near Cimarron and releasing them in the Guadalupe Mountains inside the Lincoln National Forest after prescribed burns and forest thinning designed to improve wildlife habitat.

To learn more about the WSFR Program in the Southwest Region, visit www.fws.gov/southwest/federal_assistance

The stated mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people