On May 8th, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed Senate Bill 288 into law. The bill, sponsored by Senator Tom Casperson (R-Escanaba), gives the state’s Natural Resources Committee the authority to designate animals as game species. Previously, only the state’s legislature had that authority. Senate Bill 88 in effect removes the threat of referendum from game species designations and allows science and not anti-hunting politics to be used when making game species decisions.
In effect, game species designations made by Michigan’s Natural Resources Commission can be done through administrative rules. This means that those rules would not be subject to referendum, unlike designations made by the state’s legislature.
Anti-hunting groups have a history of spending significant sums of money in Michigan and elsewhere to run emotionally driven campaigns aimed at stopping hunting at the ballot box. These campaigns often ignore science and wildlife conservation to push their anti-hunting agendas.
For example, the Michigan legislature recently listed wolves as a game species allowing the state to use hunting as a wolf management tool. This prompted the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to collect signatures for a referendum seeking to overturn the designation of wolves as game species. Senate Bill 288 eliminates this type of action, instead keeping wildlife management in the hands of the professionals.
“Governor Snyder and the members of the Michigan legislature deserve a big thank you from the sportsmen and women of Michigan,” said Evan Heusinkveld, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Director of Government Affairs. “Most of all, we are proud of the hard work Michigan sportsmen and groups like the Michigan United Conservation Clubs did to support hunting and scientific wildlife management.”
Take Action! Michigan sportsmen should contact Governor Snyder’s office to thank him for signing Senate Bill 288 into law. His office can be reached at (517) 373-3400.