Game, Fish, and Parks Committee Meeting
Video Transcript
Duration: 49 minutes
Speakers: 13
Have people coming in and out, so we're gonna go and get started here today. But before we get going, I wanna ask, representative Ridley if you'll open us with a word of prayer. What number are you?
Let me see. Alright. Thank you. Heavenly father, we come to you today and thank you for another day on this earth. And, we hope that you will build a hedge around us, protect us, keep us safe. We'd expect the best decisions that we can for the state.
And, Lord, most of all, we ask you to forgive us for all our sins and the ones that we're about to commit. Amen.
Amen.
Good cowboys.
Good good gracious.
Good gracious.
Alright. But before we get going, I wanna take this time as our first our kickoff meeting for the year to to recognize a few,
new faces we've got with us this year. First off,
we've got two new interns in our office, Victor Avilla and Owen Hawkins in the back of the room. They're helping us out this year and just wanna say a big thank you to them.
Our analyst, our our full time analyst is is Kevin Daniels, but we've got miss Anna Smith filling in today and I'm gonna tell him that we'll we'll just take you.
Okay. No. I'm just kidding. He was busy today and our new,
legal counsel is miss miss Kristen Harapal in the corner. We just wanna say thank you,
for everything y'all do for us.
Alright. We're gonna have our DNR,
update today. We had a lot of great things going on the past year, but we've got,
representative Rob Clifton here and he's got some big events coming up in the next, few weeks. So we're gonna try to get him,
help him get his bill moved along before he may be sidetracked a little bit. So,
at this time, I wanna recognize representative Clifton
to, present your bill.
If you wanna tell the crowd what you got going on, go ahead.
I said, hold on.
It it says it's on.
It's not working.
Light
on.
Oh. Oh, there you go. I wanna turn it back down. There we go. I don't need to dispute. I'll try it again. There you go. Well, thank you, mister chairman.
As I was saying,
my wife is due with our third child here in the next couple of weeks. So I'm hoping to move very quickly in the early part of the session, get all my stuff done. And then that way, when I get back, we're ready to keep moving forward. So I appreciate you letting me present this bill. Yes, sir.
So this is house bill nine forty six,
six, l c four four three two seven nine.
This bill,
essentially allows
drones to be used
in the locating of feral hogs.
The
latest bill came about, I had a constituent reach out to me asking if they could use drones. We have a for those who don't know, we have a very bad, hog problem, that is not going away. It will it's only intensifying.
And so in the hope of being able
to make this less of a problem,
they asked if they could use drones,
to locate where they might be.
I reached out to DNR and at one point we thought it might not be a problem. And after researching the code, it absolutely could not be done the way it is written now. So this bill, essentially
just allows,
hogs to be, hunted from an unmanned
aircraft system,
such terms as code as defining code six one four,
again, to locate feral hogs and subjects,
laws and applications
from unmanned aircraft vehicle.
So that's the just gives a little makes it easier to hunt, locate, hunt, and,
kill feral hogs.
Okay. Thank you, sir. See if you have any question, I know all of us are well aware of the destruction that hogs due to not only our our hunting land, but also,
terrible for our farmers and and loss of income and crops.
We do have a few questions.
Number 11.
The chairman court. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you for for bringing for bringing this bill. This doesn't affect any way if you people that that hung them out of a helicopter. That's not a that doesn't affect that in any way. No, sir. This is just and and I should have added to this is just for private property. So if you're going on WMAs or other people's,
federal or state property trying to locate,
with drones, you are in the wrong, and you're gonna get in the same trouble you would have anyways. So this is just for private use on private properties. One other comment, miss mister chairman, if I can. Yes, sir.
Our our previous chairman of this committee, Tom McCall, I mean, he has and talking about feral hogs. He said he didn't we can shoot him with anything from a BB gun to bazooka. And I've I I don't have any problem with adding this to it.
I feel good.
Question number two. Who is number two? Thank you Mister chairman I and I want to say to I guess you have with the-
a long with my question was I guess. You said it just only on that person's property but- only but- he cannot contact the- adjacent person
say, property that says, you know, you got some feral hogs. Can can I come over there and and and annihilate them?
I I would say
yeah. If he it it's really more from a personal a private property standpoint.
There's a lot of WMAs in the state of Georgia that you can go on and hunt publicly,
for multiple different, species depending on the hunting season.
If you you this bill or currently, you cannot, and this bill does still does not allow you to use drones on public property.
But if you're on your land and your neighbor, I don't see any issue at all with, calling saying, hey. I was flying around, saw some hogs if you wanna go get them.
Really, this is truly
making it easier for people to locate feral hogs with the hopes again of decreasing the population.
Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you. Yes, sir. Number 14, chairman of Hooten. Yeah. Thanks, mister chairman. Just curious. What's prohibiting,
land owners from doing this now?
So currently in the law, the part that we are striking out,
which is rose about '23 through '32,
gives a lot of,
stipulations on how you can hunt these. We're basically taking
this out and allowing you to hunt
them however you can get them.
I'll add one more since we are on record.
And please tell me if I'm wrong. I believe hogs can start having litters about the age of two,
and they have somewhere between two and three litters a year
at the tune of about 12,
piglets per litter. So once they are on your property,
it's hard to get rid of them and and they cause a lot of destruction.
Yeah. Yeah. Very destructive. Thank you. We need to get a pig breed.
Quite number one. Is that
representative Dunnehy? Yes, sir. Mister chairman. Yeah. Let me ask you a question and why you guys the experts here. I don't ever assume, but I think it would be if my property
and I have permission from my neighbor to hunt his property
and written permission is what we used to do.
I think you're still covered with that. Is that true? If you don't have written permission, basically, you could be trespassing.
And that was one thing I would clarify. Let me ask you because South Georgia is a little bit different.
I have Lake Lanier as my main body of water. I'm not gonna go hunting out of my boat or anything like that.
But when it's you're reading this, if I was in a John boat on a farm pond, it's okay to hunt out of that boat
for shooting pig or whatever. Okay. And I'm what I figured that I want to make sure
Lakeland here that would be off limits in your main core lakes. That's that's basically just want to clarify to make sure I was close to right. Thank you. Hey, sir.
Are there any other,
questions?
Chairman, will you? Yeah. I had the proper time, mister chairman. I'd like Now's the time. That we we move this bill on. Now's the time. I'd like, motion we move this bill out. Seconded.
I hear I hear a motion. I have a hear a second. Is there any other discussion?
All in favor, say aye.
Aye. Any opposed?
Move on. Thanks, sir. Thank you very much. Hogs
are a problem, and I appreciate you.
Yes, sir.
Alright. Now I'm about to turn the, meeting over to
commissioner Raven. We've had a a a very good year with, DNR, and he has done a tremendous job.
I am biased, but, we've got
the the best commissioner and the best DNR staff in
in in in the country. And I'm very proud of them, and I'm very proud of what they do. And they do a great job because they have so many different categories and things that they have to do. And,
from the the winter storm response that he they just had to be involved in and and just proud of them all the way down from the mountains to the Coast. Y'all do a tremendous job and I just want to say thank you. And,
we just want to hear what you got for us, buddy. Thank you. Thank you, mister chairman. I appreciate those comments. And we do have the best team in state government. Very proud of each and every one of them.
It's a pleasure to be before all of you today. I'm on,
go ahead and apologize. Y'all drew the short straw. We've got a pretty big event coming up this weekend.
And then a lot of our divisions are still tied in with winter storm fern. So instead of bringing the whole team up and letting them present to you, which you would have enjoyed much more, I'm gonna do this high level overview
of our agency and then tell you about some of the high high points
and some of the cool initiatives that we have going on.
Most of you are very aware
that we DNR is comprised of five different divisions.
I will get into four of those divisions
again. You know, the Environmental Protection Division
is run by Director Cam
and is also a governor appointee.
And I'm sure he'd be happy to come talk with you anytime you would need some EPD,
guidance.
But let me let me start talking to you a little bit about DNR as an overview.
Our FY twenty six budget as an agency was $355,000,000
Of that $3.55,
only 181,000,000
of those dollars are state dollars.
The rest are,
federal funds
and other funds that we collect throughout the year. We have about 2,700
employees
in DNR, and that would include
EPD.
But if you'll look, I'm gonna roll right in. And I know we've got some time constrictions this afternoon.
So I'm gonna hit the very high points. This PowerPoint can be given to all of you. Just make that request and we'll get that to you. But our coastal resources division, which we do have our director with us, Doug Hamans, many of you know Doug and work with him day in and day out.
But it's based out of Brunswick.
That division is made up of two sections, our marine two sections, our marine fisheries and our coastal management sections.
And, again, this is very high level. There is a lot about 75 people down there that work for Doug and do some very complex
things day in and day out. But
to to dumb it down where I can speak to you in layman's terms, our marine fishery section
provides the information that pretty much manages all of those coastal fisheries.
And that's the saltwater populations,
and that includes our commercial and our recreational,
fishing opportunities that are along the coast. And again, I'm putting that very simple. It's it's much more complex than that. I think Doug would agree. And then our coastal management section
works with our local, state, and federal authorities
to balance the economic development that has taken place and the population growth that has taken place in those 11 coastal counties that you see outlined up there.
But this this section is pretty much charged with protecting
our coastal, natural, historic and recreational resources. So a lot of permitting that goes on within that section. Again, they do a great job
for our 105 miles of coastline that you see up there, as well as our 14 barrier islands.
Moving on to our law enforcement division.
Today we stand at about 200 game wardens statewide.
Many of you are very familiar with the roles that they play in the hunting, fishing, boating,
enforcement that takes place in our state.
Our game wardens are post certified just like any other law enforcement officer in the state of Georgia.
They are, federally
deputized to operate and enforce federal laws as well.
We kind of call them
the Swiss army knife of law enforcement. We are pretty much the only law enforcement,
agency
that gets off the pavement. When the when the dirt roads in, we're the ones that that get called for that.
But not only off the pavement, as you know, governor Kemp has tasked us to be a part of the crime suppression units
that are still working here within the perimeter,
in Atlanta.
So you talk about some uncomfortable people. You ask a game warden to come up here inside Metro Atlanta and they're looking for a way to get out, but they do a great job while they're here. And we're proud to be a part of that task force as well.
We do currently have a,
cadet
class going on
the fortieth Game Warden Academy.
And it The graduation is scheduled for April 17. So we would love to have you in attendance for that graduation.
If you want to go ahead and put that on your calendars.
Next, our State Parks and Historic Sites Division.
As you know, not only managing
some of the
state's most unique cultural
resources that we have
in our state, but also some of the most
beautiful places in the state of Georgia
fall within the 60 plus properties that they manage.
Some cool stats for our parks division. 13,000,000
visitors last
year. Last fiscal year, we hosted 13,000,000
visitors.
That had an economic impact to our state of over $1,700,000,000
So we have,
a very robust,
inventory of properties in our state parks. We're very proud of those. You can see see them listed up there on the screen.
But such a great job of customer service.
I would encourage you as you travel around the Southeast particularly, but but anywhere in the nation,
visit some of those other state park systems and then compare that to what we offer in Georgia. And I think you'll be like me. You'll be very, very proud of what we offer, not only to our citizens of Georgia, but to those that visit that
system as well.
Our wildlife resources division, I did ask Chris Harper to come up.
Chris, raise your hands so they can see.
So Chris is,
about two months in to, new director position as our wildlife resources division director.
He's got an extensive fisheries background, and he is quickly drinking from a fire hose, learning about all the other things that our wildlife resources division does as well.
But super proud to have Chris on. He is a great asset to our team and I think all of you will look forward to working with him in the future.
Our wildlife resources division is comprised of four different sections. We have our game management section, our fisheries management section,
our wildlife conservation
section, and our communication,
education, and outreach section.
We manage
in in the game management section over a million acres in Georgia through our wildlife management area system that we have. You see there are 133
wildlife management areas. Again,
public opportunity for people to get out and enjoy what we are blessed to have in our state.
Our fisheries management section, along with managing all of the state fisheries, they run
10 hatcheries in our state and produce over 11,000,000
fish annually
for our anglers to enjoy.
Not only that, I think you saw maybe the first slide, we've got 16,000,
miles of streams in our state.
Over 500,000
acres of impounded
reservoirs in our state. So, again, just a huge undertaking with what that fisheries management section manages day in and day out.
Our wildlife conservation
section,
pretty much all the things that we hunt and fish for, they manage everything else, which comprises of about
95%
of the species
in our state. So
again, a huge undertaking and that's not just, you know, animal species, bird species. That also includes plant species and those habitats
where we get to house a lot of threatened and endangered plants and animals as well.
And then lastly, the the newest
constructed section within the wildlife resources division is the communication,
education, outreach section.
They work to support the other three sections and getting that messaging out. One thing that we realized is we do a great job
at managing the resources.
In the past, we have not, or we could have done a better job of getting the message out of what we're doing. So they they are doing a great job of getting the message out of not only what takes place within
WRD,
but the, the whole agency,
in their messaging. So great, great teamwork
that takes place within those divisions.
With that, I had just a few updates of some things that, that are of interest and fresh off the press, winter storm, FERN.
We we have been preparing for FERN since about last Monday or Tuesday.
We had
the first time that we've ever kind of locked arms with the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Department of Agriculture
for a unified command for our response to a weather event.
It was housed in Macon and the teamwork. And you can imagine when I call out those sister agencies,
you know their leadership and you know how well that the team members, the ones actually out in the field,
melded together very quickly.
From our side of it in in the unified command, we had over 200 personnel
that were out there working for this weather event.
Many of those 200 are still out there as we're standing here speaking today.
They were out there yesterday with chainsaws
and dragging limbs in single digit temperatures.
So again, the men and women of DNR have truly stepped up for this. In addition to the boots on the ground and the chainsaws on the trees,
DNR and EPD
also played a role at GEMA,
in the overall
response from the state operation center
and supported,
many of the emergency support functions that took place there. We currently still have
four parks that are closed because of trees down in those parks. We have three golf courses that are still closed.
But I I'm in great hopes and would anticipate
in the next day or two, getting those parks back open and getting those up and running.
We had a lot of cancellations
because of this weather event that came in and just the canceled
reservations.
We're probably
at a loss of about $250,000
just from cancellations, not to mention the damage that has occurred to our park. So,
I don't know where you were sitting with Fern. Some depends on where your house was. Some were very bad and some were like, I didn't know there was a weather event.
But in Northeast Georgia, everyone would agree there was a major weather event.
I know each of you have heard from me about
outdoors beyond barriers.
We, we refer to it as OBB.
And the goal of OBB is simply what the bullet says that they're making the outdoors accessible for all. And that's one of the,
driving strategies that we have within the department.
And we found out that we weren't doing a very good job for our disabled populations.
And then this is how OBB was born.
Very proud of the work that's been done.
This past year,
we hosted 20 adaptive hunting events.
And we had over 140
hunters that participated in those events.
We had 14 adapted fishing events.
We've had a couple of dove shoots that have taken place.
We've had and have more,
shooting events that's going to take place that are strictly geared for those with mobility impairments.
And, it is so cool. I know a couple of you have been out to a few of those events, but if you truly want a blessing, come out and
see some smiles on some faces
that hadn't really got to get outdoors or in the woods in a long, long time, if ever. So it's very, very cool. Not only on the hunting and fishing side of OBB. Again, this is a department initiative,
in our state parks. We've hosted mobility impaired hiking events
around our state. We currently have
17,
action track chairs where an individual can get in this chair. And it's it's in that picture on the right side of the screen. It is like a mini tank.
And those individuals too get to go out and enjoy
the woods, the water,
bird watching, and that kind of thing as well. So very proud of that. We have,
four grit chairs. We've got
some glasses that we've added to our inventory that would allow those that are color blind to see the colors of the leaves in the fall.
So again,
you know, we've got kayak launches for those that are mobility,
challenged.
And then we have some adaptive
golf
opportunities
as well at some of our golf courses. So a great initiative, very proud of the team
and all that they have created
with a brand new initiative
that,
honestly, two years ago, you know, it's not even a thought.
Some of you
I've spoke with and you may have got a few phone calls.
We did January 1. Our park pass,
went up
from $5
from when it was established to $5 in 2009.
It went to $10 this year. And if you look at the
inflation rate during that time period, you would know
that we certainly had not kept up with it. And the $10 still doesn't bring us up to where inflation says
our park pass fee should be.
But let me stress to you the importance of this park pass fee to us.
And that's certainly, you know, just the gate fee.
All of those revenues, that's the only dedicated funding in our state that comes back directly
to Georgia State Parks.
Every dollar of that goes back into
maintaining
all of those properties that I spoke of earlier.
So it's been huge for us.
Again, I'm sure if you've got a park in your district, you've probably heard of this.
The
the comments that we're getting now is it's about time. Why didn't we do this sooner? So, it's been
pretty successful.
Although, you know, we're less than a month into it. But, the people that enjoy our state parks don't mind paying an additional $5
to get to those properties.
And then I know
you are familiar with House Bill five zero one from 2019.
This, established and supported
what I call oyster farming or oyster mariculture
industry that we now have in our state.
Since the implementation,
we have three mariculture
zones that have been designated.
Chatham County, McIntosh
County, and then most recently
currently we have nine
contracted harvesters.
Four of those are actually producing,
oysters today.
I still haven't tasted one. Look forward to that maybe this weekend.
We have two
of those nine that are currently
staging or deploying their gear into their leases.
And then we have three pending permits that Doug and his team are working through so that they too can get gear in the water. It's gonna be a great
economic impact for our state. As most of you know, a lot of our
single farmed oysters come from Apalachicola
or they come from Virginia.
We've got
the place to do it here in our state. And I'm glad that our state has decided to capitalize
on this great natural resources that we have.
With that, we've also moved within the last year towards a summer harvest.
And we're currently updating that. But this past summer,
these growers of these farm oysters were able to harvest their oysters,
in the mornings
and get those to a cooler in a specified
amount of time. I think it was
two hours, and now we're moving that to 10AM.
So that, that gives them a little more flexibility
in harvesting their oysters.
But,
again and then the the clam and the wild oyster harvest continues. This is not
in competition with either of those fisheries as well on our coast.
Another hot
button topic that I know I've heard from almost every single one of you on is the red snapper. Not to be confused with the redfish.
But the red snapper, as you know, currently,
is managed by the federal government.
This past year how many years, Doug, have we had a one day season?
Since 2009.
Since 2009,
we've had a one day season. And I know many of you that like to fish for red snapper probably go to The Gulf because they have an extended season.
We currently have a bill
now that's that's working to help us gather data.
Carryover bill from last year,
House Bill four forty three and Senate Bill four twenty. So when you see those come across your desk,
please support those bills. But
basically what we have done, we partnered with Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina to apply for a red snapper exempted fishing permit.
And that would be issued by NOAA.
Governor Kemp also
wrote a letter to the secretary of commerce
encouraging them to let Georgia manage that saltwater species.
We've had numerous public meetings, have
received,
lots of favorable comment
in giving us the the ability to manage that species.
If we receive that exempted fishing permit, what we are looking at doing is a sixty two day red snapper season that would run through July and August with a one fish limit each day.
The key to that and the important part of the bills that you'll you'll be seeing this session is it does have mandatory
harvest reporting.
We want to be as accurate as we possibly can with the data that we collect and the data that we then
forward to the federal the the feds.
So
through a mobile phone app with Yamaha, Right Waters playing a key role in developing this platform.
We we look forward to getting this exempt to permit and we should hear something
by
May. May.
Yep. Another
topic of Well, before I get to the other topic of great concern, this is not of great concern. This is all
good news. Partnering with the Georgia Wildlife Federation.
You'll remember that we had $500,000
that was, put in our budget to help with hunters for the hungry, and it has helped exponentially.
We now have this program in 52 counties of our 159.
And we have 56
participating,
deer coolers, meat processors.
Thus far, we have 108
food banks across our state that we have we, and I say we because I am a hunter, but hunters have contributed to,
which has amounted to 120,000
pounds of venison.
Now I would say even our chairman doesn't have that much venison in his freezer, and we know it's full.
No. Our don't close.
Our goal is 140,000
pounds, and we feel like that we will meet that goal
for the year with the monies that you appropriated
for us through the extended bow season.
That's still got a few days left in it, as well as through our crop damage permits
and use and participate in processors in that.
Chronic waste and disease.
I can look around and some of you are directly impacted by this.
You'll remember I came to you last year
and updated you of the first case that we had in our state.
And then you were kind enough to give us $250,000
to allow us to manage this disease.
Since
I last updated
this committee on CWD, we now have 10
confirmed cases in our state.
Those cases are still in Lowndes, Berrien, Lanier, and Atkinson County.
And while that sounds like a huge geographic area, if you drew a straight line, they're all within about 20 miles of each other.
And when I say Lowndes County, there's not been a confirmed case in Lowndes. But when we have a what we call a CWD zone, we draw a five mile circle around where that deer was harvested.
And that county becomes part of our management zone. So that's that's how the Northeast Corner of Lowndes County,
fell into that five mile radius.
Again,
the monies you gave us helped us with our sampling sites. It's helped us to put out,
78
cooler sites for people to leave their deer heads for us so that we can do the testing.
Chris, I don't know if you know right off the top of your head, how many tests we've done throughout deer season?
Thousand,
At least a thousand?
Over 3,000. Let's go with that. Sounds better. Over 3,000 samples. Let me say there's been a lot of samples that's been taken throughout this deer season.
And to say that we only have 10 confirmed cases at this date and time,
you know, will we have more? The answer is yes. Will it go away?
The answer is no. But I want you to know that,
you know, Chris, his team, our biologists, our game wardens
are actively
retrieving samples day in and day out.
And, we will continue to monitor and manage the disease to try to keep it from spreading to other parts of our state.
And that's the last slide. I I thought I had a few more to go, but thank you, mister chairman. I'm more than happy to answer any questions. Well, thank you, mister commissioner.
Commissioner.
And that was, a very well done update, and I appreciate the info. And I I just wanna stress to the committee, when y'all have questions and concerns and
you can't get me or can't y'all need to call commissioner, call the office. They are great at giving you the direct answers you need that your constituents are,
or,
howling about or fussing about or needing to get. And, you know, I just want y'all to remember that
that
the department does a great job of working with other agencies. Like
he mentioned the last couple years, we we partnered with Department of Ag.
Our farmers were really complaining
about our our deer herd eating and damaging their crops and eating up their profits. And the program that we came up with in a joint effort was
y'all we had 12 people participating
in that,
12 processors in the in the hunters for the hungry, and now we've got 56.
That was a direct result
of of the effort that we put together the last year. And I hope we continue to grow that
because, you know, as we all know, you if you can
shoot a doe and go drop it off, you're a lot more likely to take two or three more and trim your herd out than you are if you have to go home and and clean it yourself and do all that. So that's the whole point in premise
behind. That program and I just want to thank you for that seems to be working really well.
Alright you've got a few questions we're gonna go- chairman Lehut.
Yeah thank you Mr chairman great presentation appreciate all you do and your team to steward the state's resources.
This is timely that I get to ask this because I just was asked by a constituent yesterday. We have a lot of avid, you know, duck hunters, bird hunters back in my district back home.
And the question was around the dates of duck season.
I understand that's a duck from migratory birds
in
in the federal regulations,
you know, dictate a lot of this, but, how much discretion
does your department have in in setting the dates?
And and the question was centered around, you know,
a lot of years, it seemed like it's later in the season when it's pushing the the birds down this, you know, Far South and South Georgia. So can we can we get it, back to
January 31,
last day of the season?
Is that under consideration?
So
I'm a huge proponent of we should have the season when the ducks are here, unfortunately. That's hard to plan for a year or two in advance.
Now currently, the way the way our seasons are set up for migratory birds,
the feds, US Fish and Wildlife give us gives us a window
of dates
and for us, Chris and his team, to construct
our season.
And
when when we get that window of dates and if you know those right off, Chris, I'd be willing to throw those out there. I'd remember I told you he's a fish guy. He's a fish guy, but I'll get you those dates.
That that window of dates. And then within those dates, they give us sixty days that we can have,
water foul season.
So with that, we know that, you know,
Thanksgiving is always a traditional time for for people to get together and hunt ducks. Is that the best time for the migration that's going on? Probably not. That's one of those social sciences that we take into account with that.
But I can tell you that we do maximize
the time and push it as far back as we can.
We'll get those dates to you, but,
no, we we can't push it back any further than that window of dates.
Is that window the same every year? It is. Okay. It is. Alright. We appreciate it. And I know there's no way to predict, you know, when when those migratory birds will be coming through. But,
the the constituent,
his his,
I guess, ask was can we
move it to the end of that date range the feds give give us?
We we we will look at that. If there is any wiggle room, we can certainly look at the migration patterns and dates and see if what we can do. Alright. Like, to make it as late as possible. Yes, sir.
Thanks, sir. Representative Williams?
Thank you, mister chairman.
And thank you, commissioner.
I've seen a lot of commissioners. Got to work with a lot. I'm the longest serving person by a lot on this committee.
I've been on this committee for twenty three years.
Alright. And I've seen most of them. You do an excellent job.
Appreciate what you're doing, certainly,
you know, through the follow through and everything. We appreciate what you did down at, Sapelo.
Very tragic situation that you got out in front of.
I would like to ask that at your convenience, I'd like to discuss
some releases
that are in effect that we have down on the coast. Okay. Certainly like to talk to you about that. We can do that offline. But thank you and your team
and especially Doug. You know, I'm a little partial to the coastal district, so had to give him a little shout out. But thank you so much for what all
all your team does. Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Representative McClain?
Thank you, mister chairman. I will say thank you to miss mister for all all y'all do because,
I'm just glad that,
that you are going for $10, but, you know, I do still have some of those fixed income communities
and old folks, and they'd be saying to you. And I said, hey. Come on.
But at least you got them off of the fishing license because because at first, they were complaining about the fishing. And now it's kinda like, okay. It was so I like you coming back each and every year with something different. No. Just kidding. But I do wanna say thank you too, but I know I heard you say that we lost you lost about 250,000,
300,000
with Fern. Yes, sir.
Do you you you need you got that or you we got a reason I'm saying it because I was just tell talking about two things, and I didn't want
the the fee to go up, and I don't want the license fee to go up either. So No. Yes. I would tell you that we're we're gonna make it up. If you're on any of the social medias, you will see that our parks division is pushing out
all kind of deals about the parks that we do have open. So we're trying to get those people that canceled those reservations to come back
at another time or go to another property so that we can make up those funds.
And they do a great job of marketing what we offer.
But, no. We hope to make those funds back up.
Thank you. I just I just put those two items out there that, you know, just leave my fishing license alone at all. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir.
Thank
you, mister chairman.
I would like the coordinates is to where you're dumping all the, reefs and everything. So if I could get that would be great.
But seriously, thank you. Thank you very much for what you do. And, you know, we had a debacle here on Memorial Day with the Corps of Engineers
and
Brent Cox and I spent about thirty six hours mobile different places we called. And a gentleman right back here, Thomas, I appreciate when I reached out to you.
I told a lot of people we had a plan here. Means you guys did, and not everybody understood that.
We had people that were upset. I probably had three or 400 calls that day, text and emails, because I used to fish pretty seriously.
All the fishing industry was getting into it. And when I told them that, they were like, you're kidding me. I said, Georgia, we have a great DNR. We have a great group of guys that's gonna get it done. And we wanna keep bragging on you all that because you need to be lifted up for doing what's right.
Now we still are having a little bit of problem here and there. It looks like a lot of us are gonna, like Lanier, start taking over certain ramps. Hopefully, we've done a few.
But,
I just wanna compliment you again. And if I ever need you, I hope we'll do that again because that assured a lot of people that were very ill
that something was gonna be done. And, you know, thank you. No. That was a a long weekend. Yes. It was. Yes. Holiday weekend. But and as you know, we have met with the corps. They've been great partners Right. For decades
now back when Moe Thrash was a little boy. Yes. He left. Robert e Lee. Yeah. Yeah. But,
no. It it they're they're a great partner, and we have carried on those conversations, not just that weekend, but we have ongoing conversations with them now. Thank you very much.
Thank you, representative Huddleston. Thank you, mister chairman, for allowing me to be a part of community today. Thank you, commissioner, and all your team members for what you do for the state and and,
the opportunities that we have.
In my district, I have West Point Management Area that has a shooting range. And I believe you had up there on your one of your slides, there was 46 shooting ranges within the state. I've had some ask within my area.
Just educate me on, are there usually full time range supervisors at those, or do we just depend upon the, natural resource officers of opening and closing? And is it due to funding
that may be keeping from having the full time,
safety officers there? I think that was a yes. Yes. No. Yes.
Okay. So if you did No. We we do. We we do have a number of shooting ranges, and we have a lot of partners that we partner with to you on a number of other shooting ranges across the state.
We do maintain
some type of supervision
at all of our ranges,
some of our partners. And I speak of, like, national forest, The US National Forest.
Some of those ranges may not be manned, you know, the whole time that they're open.
So we may have some oversight there, but there may not be an individual there. I do think West Point is one that we we do maintain
full time staff there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think that wraps wraps up the questions. I but I had one.
Just
I'm sorry. Why that's not Okay. You go go ahead. I'm sorry. I apologize.
Thank you very much for this information. I am from Cherokee County,
and we have a overload of deer population coming into our neighborhoods.
There is not a day that I drive out of my neighborhood that I don't see probably 20 or 30 deer 30 deer just eating away, having a grand time. Are we doing anything about, the population
in Cherokee County, which is around Lake Allatoon, of course? And my second question is the corps closed
some
parks around,
Lake Altoona in Cherokee County. And do you know if those will be opened again at some point, please? So so on the deer first,
we we do encourage we have again, bow season is still going on in those metro counties.
So we encourage, we like for our hunters to help us maintain those populations.
We are just dipping our toe in the water with our OBB initiative and marrying that in some of the metro communities
where there are lots of deer, lots of opportunities to harvest. And then when that harvest takes place, it saves your rose bushes and all your other shrubs as well. So we're working towards that, but we we do have an urban,
wildlife program
within our wildlife resources division.
They are
day in and day out in those homeowners,
homeowner associations,
educating
the best ways to help manage those deer populations.
And then
the the core question on Altoona,
a few of their ramps were
kinda lumped in with what representative Donahue was talking about earlier.
Again, we're in conversations
with the corps on how to keep those open, how we can work as partners
so that those opportunities don't go away for our boaters and anglers.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The question I was gonna ask is,
I know last year we had we had made great strides. I think we only had seven or nine counties that did not have a game warden. And you mentioned our new academy. How's that looking now?
Still a challenge,
the recruitment
and retention
of our law enforcement officers, not just law enforcement officers, but particularly our law enforcement officers.
We have a number. I don't know what that number is. We probably have not whittled that number down from what we gave you last year.
Normal attrition, we've had a few that have retired throughout the year. We've had a few that thought they were going to greener pastures.
Every now and then, some of them wanna come back to our pasture, which is good too.
But, no, it's an ongoing battle in the profession of law enforcement
in getting, you know, young people interested in coming in and enforcing the law.
But
so far, we're we're meeting the demands,
with what we can withhold with our budget
and with our available positions that we have. So,
we're in a in a good place with that number. I might have been looking at my phone. How many people do we have in the academy, did you say? What did I say? 23? 23. 23. Okay.
Good. Thank you. And then our the window on our dates and it closed, but it did
and
he chairman left.
It does go to the January. So we'll look at shifting those dates. I think it went out January 20. Twenty fifth, I think, was the
wasn't that the last day?
So we're it's the here here's the windows. So we have a early teal window that allows us to construct dates
from September 1 through the thirtieth.
And then for regular ducks, the Saturday nearest to September 24
through January
31. And then I was correct with the sixty days in there. So we'll Chris is certainly taking notes,
and, we'll go back to our team and see if we can push it back till the end of the month.
K. That'd be great.
Well, I sure thank you. I don't wanna have my,
screen blinking anymore. Does anybody
else have any thoughts or questions or discussion?
Yes. Doug Doug's probably already sent. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank this is a great committee. Again, I hope all of you have my number.
And if you don't have mine, somebody on the team, but it will
gladly give that to you. Don't hesitate to call. Love working with your committee. Well, thank you so much, and thank you to the staff and the guys,
and gals that that do everything,
with commissioner. Thank you all. We're adjourned.