Run on guns, ammo adds millions to parks revenue

Soaring ammunition and gun sales triggered by concerns about tighter restrictions on firearms have created boom times for state wildlife agencies, which this year will receive a record $522 million.

The 11 percent tax on purchases of firearms, ammunition and other products used in hunting and shooting sports goes into a fund for wildlife management, habitat restoration and enhancements. It's been credited with rebuilding species such as white-tailed deer and wild turkey.

The record national total, up almost 30 percent from the previous year, resulted from a spectacular surge in purchases of firearms and ammunition triggered by concerns over the potential of tighter firearms-related regulations. Texas' share of the tax surged more than 40 percent in one year to $24 million. It was just $10.7 million in 2006.

And sales show no signs of slowing. The first two quarters of this fiscal year indicate that revenue could exceed $600 million.

"It's unprecedented," said Steve Barton, acting deputy assistant director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Division of Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Programs. "We saw a big jump in 2009, but it wasn't near this level."

Welcome windfall

In 2009, excise taxes generated through sale of firearms and ammunition surged 28 percent, to $472 million, from the previous year. The increase coincided with the election and inauguration of President Barack Obama and a jump in firearms purchases attributed to concerns the new administration would quickly push for more restrictive firearms laws.

Firearms-related excise tax receipts fell each of the next two fiscal years, to less than $400 million, before exploding this past year.

The windfall is welcomed by state wildlife agencies, almost all of which heavily depend on federal aid grants, often called "P-R" (Pittman-Robertson) grants, to fund wildlife-related programs. Almost all state wildlife programs, including Texas', are funded solely by money generated through sale of hunting licenses and the excise tax reimbursements from the Wildlife Restoration Program.

"Almost no state uses any general tax revenue to support wildlife programs," Barton said. "Most of them depend on license revenue and federal aid grants."

The boost in federal aid grants will help Texas address pressing wildlife-related needs, officials said.

"That federal aid money is critical to what we do, so I welcome any increases," said Clayton Wolf, director of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's wildlife division. "It supports just about every program we have. It's a major portion of my budget - most years, half or so."

The agency plans to use some of the federal money to fund the agency's research programs which were greatly reduced or eliminated through Legislature-ordered budget cuts over the past several years.

Also, the influx of excise tax reimbursements will help fund crucially needed projects such as addressing the state's declining populations of quail and pronghorn, working to acquire habitat for the threatened lesser prairie chicken and other threatened or endangered species, funding projects on the agency's open-to-the-public wildlife management areas and myriad other programs benefiting wildlife.

"I can't overemphasize how important the P-R program is to wildlife, and how important it has been," Wolf said. "I'd hate to think what the state of wildlife would be without it."

Improving safety

The 75-year-old Wildlife Restoration Program is credited with fueling most of the successes in maintaining, restoring and enhancing wildlife - game and nongame - in the United States, and improving safety of hunting and shooting sports.

When the program was created in 1937 through Congress' passage of the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, populations of many wildlife species were at record lows and fast declining through a combination of habitat destruction, little or no protection and lack of funding to address the problems.

States attempted to create wildlife management programs using hunting license revenue, but state legislatures regularly siphoned those funds for other, nonrelated projects.

A coalition of recreational hunters, conservation groups and firearms and ammunition manufacturers successfully pushed for creation of the federal excise tax, to be reimbursed to states as grants, on hunting and shooting sports-related products. The excise tax is paid by the manufacturers and is 10 percent of the wholesale price of handguns and 11 percent of the wholesale price of other firearms, ammunition and archery equipment.

The majority of the funds are allocated to states based on a formula combining the state's physical size and the number of hunting licenses purchased, with a state eligible to receive no more than 5 percent of annual total tax revenue. The program disperses fund through grants for specific projects, and funds as much as 75 percent of approved projects with states providing 25 percent in matching funds.

Its successes include rebuilding the nation's white-tailed deer population from about 500,000 in the 1930s to more than 15 million today. Money generated thought the program also largely responsible for rebuilding the wild turkey population from a few thousand birds scattered in isolated areas of the South and West to more than 6 million birds throughout the country,

For wildlife, sports

Also, the program includes a provision which ensures revenue generated through purchase of state hunting license is used only to fund wildlife or shooting sports programs.

Under the federal program, a state which diverts hunting license revenue for any purpose other than approved wildlife-related projects is ineligible to receive its apportionment of the federal tax revenue.

Texas, with its size and more licensed hunters (1.2 million in 2012) than any other state, always receives the maximum annual allocation of P-R funds. Since 1937, the Wildlife Restoration Program has provided almost $360 million in funding for Texas wildlife programs.

Nationally, the program has provided more than $7 billion for wildlife-related projects.

"It's been a great success," USFWS' Barton said of the Wildlife Restoration Program. "It's one of those programs where the users - hunters and shooters - pay, and the general public - anyone who enjoys wildlife - enjoys the results."

TPWD's Wolf echoes Barton.

"The program benefits all wildlife - nongame as well as game. That improves the quality of life for all of us," he said. "But it's because sportsmen and shooters are the ones carrying the load; they're the ones paying the bills for wildlife conservation."