The birding community is generally supportive of this sort of thing, and there's been a lot of discussion among us lately about whether this is enough. There's the understanding that fishing and hunting dollars have paid for an awful lot of habitat improvement, but overall, hunting and fishing people are declining in numbers. |
There's the sense that birders have to pick up the tab, and the question is how to do it. You can't really sell licenses to look at birds, although we have talked about parking passes and we have discussed a birder's pass. |
We know that the money has traditionally come from the rod and gun people. We're definitely very conscious of the contribution the hunters and fishermen have made, and we want to emphasize that. |