The Interior Department has apportioned more than $1.1 billion in annual national funding for state wildlife agencies from revenues generated by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration (PRDJ) Acts for 2018.
Allocations of the funds are authorized by Congress. To date, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has distributed more than $20.2 billion to state conservation and recreation projects.
State-by-state listings of the final Fiscal Year 2018 apportionments of Wildlife Restoration Program fund can be found here.
“American sportsmen and women are some of our best conservationists, and they contribute billions of dollars toward wildlife conservation and sportsmen access every year through the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson Acts,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said when he made the announcement in Horicon, Wisconsin.
“For nearly eighty years, states have been able to fund important conservation initiatives thanks to the more than $20 billion that has generated nationwide. Every time a firearm, fishing pole, hook, bullet, motor boat or boat fuel is sold, part of that cost goes to fund conservation,” he explained.
“The best way to increase funding for conservation and sportsmen access is to increase the number of hunters and anglers in our woods and waters. The American conservation model has been replicated all over the world because it works."
In Horicon, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources manages over 11,000 acres of the Horicon Marsh, and almost every habitat project completed includes the use of PRDJ funds. Projects include prescribed burning, invasive species treatments, wetland berm maintenance, prairie seeding and restoration, and timber stand improvement.
Wisconsin received a total of $23,542,090 through the PRDJ acts, distributed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to support critical state conservation and outdoor recreation projects.
Funds from the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish (PRDJ) Restoration acts are derived from excise taxes paid by the hunting, shooting, boating and angling industries on firearms, bows and ammunition and sport fishing tackle, some boat engines, and small engine fuel.
Recipient state wildlife agencies have matched these funds with approximately $6.7 billion throughout the years, primarily through hunting and fishing license revenues.
For more information about the WSFR program visit here.