New Hunting & Fishing Council

New Hunting & Fishing Council. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
I enjoy the great outdoors and you can find me doing some leisurely fishing now and again, although it’s probably more for the napping time that the actual catching of fish but those that do love to hunt and fish now fall under a new umbrella. Recently Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the creation of the Wildlife Hunting and Heritage Conservation Council which replaces the Sporting Conservation Council and expands membership to include archery, hunting and shooting sports industries. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

SALAZAR: We will ask the council to consider key issues of concern within the wildlife conservation community and assist us in maximizing our conservation and public recreation programs for the benefit of all Americans.  The creation of this council is but another chapter in the remarkable legacy of hunter-conservationist in America.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says this new Council will work to engage America's youth and get them outdoors.

VILSACK: A third of our children in this country today are overweight or obese, a third.  They are headed to a lifetime of chronic disease, increased medical expense, lost productivity at work at a time when our country enters the most competitive phase it has been involved and engaged in probably in our lifetime.

Salazar says that both the support of the duck stamp program and the sporting industry have been instrumental in this nation.

SALAZAR: By supporting the National Wildlife Refuge system through the duck stamp which was established here in the United States in the 1930’s because of the push of the sportsmen of America this program has generated $750-million dollars used to purchase nearly 6-million acres of wetland habitat for inclusion in our refuge system. And through the excise taxes that are paid through the wildlife restoration program over the past 70 years American hunters and the firearms ammunition and archery equipment industries have contributed more than $6.3-billion dollars for wildlife conservation.

Ag Sec. Tom Vilsack says there’s an ethic among those who hunt and fish and he tells a story how he and his sons received and passed the ethic torch.

VILSACK: My father took me hunting. I took my sons hunting. Their grandfather took them hunting and it wasn’t just the hunting experience. It was the conversation and discussion about nature, about the cycle of nature, about the necessity of conservation and preservation, of the hard work that is entailed and involved in preserving these resources and the responsibility we have to make sure those resources are carried on to the next generation in better shape than when we received them.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.