SALEM, Ore – The Oregon House Committee on Transportation and Economic Development held a hearing on Monday, March 23rd, to consider a range of Oregon specialty license places, including an Oregon wolf plate that would generate revenue to fund the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and their work to conserve non-game wildlife. The proposal now advances to the Joint Ways and Means Committee for further consideration. The license plate, which has been dubbed the “OR-7 plate”, would feature the image of an endangered gray wolf.
“The story of OR-7 and his epic journey in search of a mate has captured the hearts and minds of people all over Oregon, and America,” said Oregon Wild’s Wildlife Coordinator Quinn Read. “There is no better symbol for the Oregon public’s commitment to wildlife conservation than this iconic species.”
ODFW is grappling with a $32 million budget shortfall, leaving it without resources to fully implement its mission to “protect and enhance Oregon's fish and wildlife and their habitats for use and enjoyment by present and future generations.” To date, ODFW has relied largely on revenues from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. As a result, the agency has focused almost exclusively on programs that benefit game species, sometimes at the expense of its larger mission. Making matters worse, for the last two decades public participation in consumptive uses of fish and wildlife has steadily declined. With less money from license fees and few alternative sources of revenue, ODFW’s budget gap will only grow.
“A license plate alone isn’t going to solve these budget woes,” said Oregon Wild’s Conservation Director Steve Pedery. “But it does help ODFW to broaden their support in Oregon beyond just hunters and anglers, and provide some resources for the non-game wildlife programs that have long been neglected.”
Oregon Wild has been working with a coalition of conservation, hunting and fishing groups to address this budget deficit and identify sustainable new sources of revenue. According to statistics from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, wildlife watching is one of the fastest growing forms of outdoor recreation. However, ODFW currently has no mechanism to generate revenue from this constituency.
Oregon’s endangered salmon license plate has brought in over $9.5 million since its inception. However, that program has been recently scrutinized as having improper oversight and misusing funds. “With adequate oversight and proceeds directed solely to ODFW’s non-game wildlife conservation fund, this program could avoid the problems of other plates,”continued Read. “This is just a single step to begin diversifying the agency’s funding model and supporting its broader conservation mission.”
