The state of Missouri voted a portion of a percent of all sales tax to go to the Dept. of Conservation. Missouri Dept. of Conservation is the richest Dept. of Conservation there is. They are everywhere. They are buying land right and left. Just more government leavings. But that is not my point. The point is the amount of money available to them.....

Set aside (CRP) ground caused the wild life to boom in population. Set aside land provided almost unlimited hunting access. Nobody cared about hunting because there was so much of it. It was everywhere for those 10 years. I had four square miles of CRP surrounding me. Deer, quail, rabbits, turkey and us all had a place to be. My neighbors were getting $75.00 an acre for set aside. $75.00 an acre!!! They couldn't make that much using it for pasture, hay or crops. They made money buying hay and setting aside their ground. There was expanses of CRP grass everywhere. Just think ..... if Kansas, Missouri or any other state would pay the land owner enough to set aside their marginal land for non use .... the benefits we would all share. This land around me used to be as good of quail hunting as it gets. I could walk out the door in any direction and two or three of us kill a limit of quail in half a day, any day. All by myself I couldn't kill a limit of wild quail here in Missouri in a full day today period. Why has it changed? With todays mega farming equipment and crop prices the CRP program is about gone!

I would propose a substantial raise in licensing fees. I would propose a delegated portion of sales tax to be allotted for conservation use. I would propose that landowners get paid an amount sufficient to set aside all his marginal(marginal meaning profit margin) land as a viable consideration. I also would propose that we should not depend upon the Dept. of Conservation to provide a place for people to hunt.The way we are headed we are going to end up like the rest of the world, with nowhere to hunt! The only way to keep that from happening is to do something different than is being done now. The CRP was not instituted with the hunter or hunting in mind, but proved out to be the best thing that happened in modern times for hunting. Nothing will restore yester years farming practices. Habitat and access are a thing of the past without some type of realistic process. CRP did wonders. I was quail hunting the other day with a guy and we were on a place that has totally changed. Used to be no better quail hunting. Now dozers have cleaned it up and irrigation pivots are there. Clean farming. We were talking about it and he said if the land owners don't quit raping the land, farming ditch to ditch there wasn't going to be anymore quail. They won't quit! They won't quit because they make money. The only way they will quit is if there was a reason to quit. If that land they rape will make at best $65.00 an acre and they can make $75.00 an acre doing nothing to it, they will. No labor, more money. They would set it aside. States like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan used to be big bird hunting states. No more. Why? Clean farming.... We need a Conservation Reserve Program at the State level that would insure abundant local habitat and funded with money that is for the purpose of insuring the right of hunting for everyone.

We had a conservation agent at the Joplin Field Trial Ass. meeting last summer.They are offering a program to leave 3 or 4 rows of grain in the field bordering timber. You would think a landowner would go for that. They don't. The government (conservation dept.) is going to offer the landowners money to let their waterways grow up. They won't. Offer them more than they could make on the whole field and they would set it all aside. That's the only way they will do it. Just like they did on the CRP program. If Missouri would stop the nonsensical, bureaucratic waste of funds they blow on the many useless programs they have in place now, a Conservation Reserve Program could be funded in this state right now! Any other state doing what Missouri has done could also fund a Conservation Reserve Program.  

                             
Here is a perfect  example of bureaucratic failure.... Kansas stocked Bobwhite quail through out ll the glory years of quail hunting and stopped the stocking program back in the 80's. Stock birds when you have birds, don't stock them when there is none..... Missouri could put feeder stations and ten coveys of quail on every section of land in the state with the money they just piddle away. Why not do something realistic and lasting so our Kids can grow up with hunting as a way of life too. Conservation Reserve Program (our own hunter version) is the only answer. Both diminishing populations (Pheasant and Quail) and no place to hunt, could be stopped by CRP.....

I sincerely hope someone of affluence or influence happens to read this lament. I fear a way of life that we have known is soon to be a thing of the past if something is not done soon.....

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