AUDITS

Hunters, fishermen, trappers, loggers, campers, hikers, farmers, ranchers, public land users, rural private property owners, and urban residents faced with natural resource dilemmas should have three real friends in the US today. First and foremost is your State Fish and Wildlife Agency. They assure that community standards and traditions are maintained while natural resources are managed and used wisely. As the primary Constitutional authority for natural resources, they are the government entity most responsive to and subject to the natural resource demands of the people mentioned above. Your second friend should be the Federal land management agencies and in particular, the US Fish and Wildlife Service that has assumed massive powers over natural resources in recent years. Finally, your third friend should be the national Conservation organizations such as the National Trappers Association, the National Rifle Association, and the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep. These organizations share your interests and help you defend your rights against such organizations as the Humane Society of the United States, the Defenders of Wildlife, and PETA.

We each have a stake in assuring that the government agencies and bureaucrats defend our freedoms and rights as well as the programs we fought for and finance. While they must represent all citizens, they must not be allowed to become our enemies or instruments capable of eliminating hunting, fishing, trapping or any of the other things mentioned at the beginning of this article. Likewise, we must be constantly vigilant that “our” conservation organizations represent Us to Washington, DC and not the other way around. We must be constantly alert that they do not become allies of our enemies or beholden to politicians that may provide them money or influence in return for hidden support or jobs. These three friends are and must be our first line of defense against radicals that intend to eliminate our rights and freedoms.

How can we know if our friends are doing what is in our best interest? How can we tell when we are being hoodwinked? The answer is our free access to honest and reliable information. Such information is provided by routine audits performed by honest and knowledgeable auditors.

The State fish and wildlife agencies are supposed to be audited (according to the law that authorizes excise taxes on arms, ammunition, and fishing tackle) every five years. A complete audit cycle of the State agencies by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (that reserves Millions each year for this purpose) has not been completed for over 20 years. Currently, the US Fish and Wildlife Service pays these Millions to the US Department of the Interior Inspector General (illegally since the Inspector General is not supposed to accept funds from anyone but Congress AND their job is oversight of the US Fish and Wildlife Service - can you spell “conflict of interest”?) for “Reports” on State fish and wildlife agencies
that are not even called “audits”. The “reports” are littler more than sophomoric whitewash term papers consisting of only a few pages. They (the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the States) do this to suppress scandals (that no doubt exist more each year as real audits become ever-more distant memories) so that future increases of Federal funds for “State Wildlife Grants” and “Landowner Incentive Grants” and “CARA” and State and Federal land acquisition can be increased and administered “just like the ‘successful’ excise tax programs for fish and wildlife restoration over the past 50 years.”

The US Fish and Wildlife Service handles Billions of dollars and controls hundreds of Millions of acres through purchase, easement, and various new Controls like Critical Habitats, “partnering with the like of The Nature Conservancy, and various wet and dry habitats of international interest. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is only audited when Congress suspects a problem (as they did six years ago when the General Accounting Office found that $45 to $60 Million had been stolen from excise taxes collected for State fish and wildlife programs). The only other overseer of US Fish and Wildlife Service funds is the US Department of the Interior Inspector General who also “works for” the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a contractor doing “reports” on State fish and wildlife agencies.

Finally, who audits “our” conservation agencies? Some, like Ducks Unlimited can be as hard to get information from as any State or Federal agency. Are audits even conducted? Is performance audited? Are there any “real” audits conducted (samples of projects?, on-the-ground checks of employees and what they do?, some indication of WHAT the dollars are intended to achieve?) or are they just dollar checks like the Inspector General and US Fish and Wildlife Service refer to verbally as “audits” but are little more than visual narcotics meant to hide things and put you to sleep? Real issues such as why Ducks Unlimited doesn’t conduct predator control or why Trout Unlimited supports elimination of rainbow and brown trout fisheries or why the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation does not oppose decimation of elk herds by wolves need audit information available to all before intelligent discussion can occur.

ENRON or the UN Oil for Food Program or any of the other numerous current scandals are the result of poor or crooked or non-existent audits. Honest audits are not created and made available by Executives or Bureaucrats. They are created and maintained by vocal concerned Citizens and Stockholders. These are the same folks that, when they have reliable information, will do what has to be done. That means you and me seeing that honest and reliable audits are conducted routinely and that the findings are available to all of us without charges for copying or guff from Bureaucrats hiding things or wondering who you are to ask them questions. It’s a big job to get audits established but it is well worth the money and very necessary given the other forces arrayed against us.

Jim Beers
17 March 2005
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