U.P. sportsmen unhappy with DNR operation

The message was perfectly clear - clean up your act.


More than 300 sportsmen packed a meeting room at the Ramada Inn in Marquette Saturday to voice that opinion of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.


Rally organizers and attendees alike blasted the department for what many viewed as mismanagement by the state agency charged with overseeing Michigan’s vast natural resources.


One of the rally’s organizers, Rory Mattson, executive director of the Delta County Conservation District, said the residents of the Upper Peninsula deserve better service and a more responsive DNR.


Included in complaints during the more than two-hour session were diversion of money from the DNR’s fish and game fund to non-game wildlife programs, heavy-handed law enforcement, too much money spent on administration, conflicting and poor management decisions, problems obtaining public information and wasting of money by the DNR and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.


Much of the current frustration being vented over the DNR focuses on last year’s funding fiasco involving the “found” $10 million in the department’s budget. After hearing all last spring and summer that hunting and fishing license fees would have to be raised significantly to fend off major cuts in popular programs and services, a plea that fell on deaf ears in a state legislator reeling from major economic woes, sportsmen learned in December that the department wasn’t that bad off after all.


Through belt tightening and intense scrutiny of the budget, the state’s fish and game fund was found to actually have a $10 million surplus, which would carry the department through the current financial crunch. This crying wolf scenario didn’t play well with U.P. sportsmen. Most speakers at Saturday’s rally called for a DNR that is more straightforward and honest with the people who provide the funds for it to operate.


These complaints didn’t go un-noticed, either, with a half dozen state legislators in attendance at the rally, as well as the U.P.’s two representatives on the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, the seven-member panel that oversees the DNR.


The NRC members – John Madigan of Munising and J.R. Richardson of Ontonagon – vowed to take the concerns of U.P. sportsmen to Lansing with them.


Whether the concerns of U.P. sportsmen are taken seriously and addressed remains to be seen, but at least there is a movement afoot to make these concerns heard.