Federal funding to add boost to state conservation efforts

SALT LAKE CITY — Maintenance of fish hatcheries, waterfowl management and curbing disease in wildlife populations will receive a funding boost due to an allocation of nearly $10 million to Utah from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The announcement of a distribution of more than $862 million to all 50 states was made earlier this week by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who stressed the importance of wildlife conservation and education programs.

The money is derived from excise taxes and import duties on sporting firearms, ammunition, archery and sport-fishing equipment, and fuel taxes attributable to motorboats and small engines.

"Americans have few higher callings than to conserve our treasured landscapes and bountiful wildlife and connect our children and grandchildren to the great outdoors," Salazar said in a press release.

"For more than half a century, boaters, hunters, anglers, and recreational shooters, and the hunting and fishing industries have supported some of our nation's most successful programs to conserve fish and wildlife and its habitat and make it possible for Americans to enjoy them."

In Utah at the Division of Wildlife Resources, federal aid coordinator Eric Hyatt said $1 million of that money, for example, goes for surveys and inventories that are needed to provide information used to manage Utah's fisheries. Surveys look at population and habitat, and they also examine harvest/angler pressure and tap opinions of anglers.

Additional money from the allocation, approximately $750,000, is used for the operation, maintenance and monitoring of division-owned or -controlled lakes, reservoirs, lands and facilities.

A substantial chunk, a little more than $2 million in funding, supports fisheries and the "doctoring" of the fish population through diagnosis, treatment options and determining the presence of specific prohibited pathogens.

Hyatt said the funding will also be used to support transplants of certain wildlife populations, habitat surveys, maintenance of waterfowl management areas and disease control.

e-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com