Dear Conservationist:

The sportsmen and women  strongly want the DNR Secretary appointment
authority returned to the Natural Resources Board. Now Representative Scott
Gunderson is introducing a bill to do that to go along with previously
introduced Senate Bill 15 and Assembly Bill 42. However Rep. Gunderson's
Bill is very important since it is introduced by a Republican in the
Republican led Assembly. This is a major breakthrough.

It is critically important to get as many Representatives and Senators
signed on to Rep. Gunderson's bill as possible to make it a strong
bipartisan bill. THIS IS THE TIME TO PICK UP THE PHONE and call your state
senator and representative and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor and
support LRB 2762/1, relating to the Natural Resources Board authority to
appoint the DNR Secretary. If you do not have your Representative and
Senator's phone numbers, call the legislative hotline and leave a message
for both of their offices. The number is 1-800-362-9472. IT IS CRITICAL TO
MAKE THE CALL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE since the bill draft is being circulated
now.

I have included for your information the request that the Wildlife
Federation made to all Representatives and Senators today. It provides
accurate background information that you can use.

THIS IS THE TIME TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. Thank you for picking up the phone and
making the call.

George
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Dear Representative:

The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and the over 150 hunting, fishing and
trapping groups that it represents in the state respectfully requests that
you sign on to LRB 2762/1. This bill restores the appointment authority of
the DNR Secretary to the Natural Resources Board. That is the system
advocated by Aldo Leopold and hunting, fishing and trapping groups in 1928
and which served the citizens of this state well until 1995.

This issue is of the highest possible priority to sportsmen and women in
this state. Several votes have been taken on this issue at the spring
Conservation Congress hearings and the vote has always in the range of 90%
for and 10% against. As you know sportsmen and women often disagree on
issues related to conservation so a vote with those percentages is a real
mandate for returning to the former system of administering the DNR. If you
have any doubt about this, please consider stopping by your local rod and
gun club and ask their opinion. This is an issue that they are watching
carefully.

What are the concerns of sportsmen and women that warrant this change? The
first is great concern about partisan politics injecting itself into
day-to-day natural resources policies. By agency staffs' own comments that
has become the norm at DNR as the Cabinet form of governance has continued.
Sportsmen and women strongly support professional natural resource
management.

The second concern is the relative lack of professional natural resource
management experience that has become the norm at the top of the agency.
From 1954 until 2001, there were four leaders of the predecessor
Conservation Department and the DNR. From 2001 until mid-2007 there have
been four Secretaries. The average tenure has gone from 12 years to less
than two.

Starting on September 1, 2007, the average natural resource management
experience of the three top positions at DNR will be less than two years.
One sportsman asked last week: "If you were asked to buy stock in a company
where the top three senior managers had less than two years experience in
the industry much less the company, would you buy it?

The previous system of Natural Resources Board appointment of the DNR
Secretary led Wisconsin to have one of the finest if not the finest natural
resource management programs in the country. Sportsmen and women strongly
request a return to that system.

Please co-sponsor and support LRB 2762/1. This should not be a partisan
issue.

Thank you,

George Meyer
Executive Director
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation