Call your Michigan Representative today SFWCA

| August 25, 2014

Call your Michigan House Representative today before the end of Tuesday, August 26 and write a follow up email urging your elected state rep and House leaders to SUPPORT – vote YES on our Scientific Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act (SFWCA). The Michigan Senate has already passed our petition drive bill. We have to get it passed in the House now for it to become law.

Go to http://www.house.mi.gov/mhrpublic/ and use Find a Representative if you don’t already know who your elected Representative in the State House is. We HAVE to get this law passed to get our new bass season! It is that simple. Our state House has only 1 day they can possibly hold a vote and that is Wednesday, August 27, 2014.

If the House of Representatives doesn’t vote or if we lose the vote, the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) loses the authority to issue fisheries orders until the regular state vote in November. The Humane Society of the U.S. and their allies are calling Michigan voters in key districts and going door-to-door urging voters to call their state reps and many are because they think this is only about hunting wolves or not hunting wolves.

If your state rep does not hear from you that you want him or her to vote yes on the SFWCA some of them who voted for it last year are now thinking they will vote no, if there even is a vote Wednesday. Regardless of how the statewide vote goes in November there will be no time left to make a bass season change for 2015. We will have to wait until 2017 at the earliest.

Since the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) has done their usual job of confusing people,  many voters think this whole issue is ONLY about the wolf hunt, and they are likely to vote against that. HSUS is based in Washington DC. They have millions to spend and we don’t. They will continue to keep everyone focused on wolves and we could easily lose the whole authority of the NRC to manage fish and game using sound science, and the authority to issue fisheries orders because people think they are saving wolves. This would mean groups like the HSUS can run petition drives every year like the two they ran this year, and pick apart our hunting and fishing rights while the NRC and the MDNR can do almost nothing.

Please don’t think this won’t happen. They have already run the two petition drives this year and put two referendums on the ballot. One to take wolves back off the game species list, and one to remove the authority from the NRC to make any changes in the future for ANY game or fish. Ask your friends and neighbors what we are voting on in November and see what the results are. Everyone I have asked thinks we are voting to hunt wolves or not hunt wolves. We have been told it would take at least $2 Million to run a media advertising campaign big enough to help enough people understand what they are really voting on. None of the outdoor groups have that kind of budget nor can we easily raise that kind of money in less than two months.

But we have this one chance thanks to many of your hard work in our own volunteers citizens’ initiative petition drive culminating in our Scientific Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. We must get our state House members to hold a vote Wednesday August 27, and get a majority of them to vote YES. If the House passes our SFWCA the Governor does not even have to sign it – IT IS LAW! And we stop the radical animal rights, anti-hunting, anti-fishing groups from taking away our new bass season before we even get it! Because the NRC keeps their authority to manage fish and game using sound science, and their authority to issue fisheries orders! The November votes on the two referendums become meaningless and the radical animal rights anti-hunting anti-fishing people have to spend more money and take more of their time trying to take our hunting and fishing away from us knowing that we can beat them with our own petition drive! This is CRITICAL! There’s only one outcome we can have!

Call your Michigan state rep TODAY, and send an email too. Go to http://www.house.mi.gov/mhrpublic/ and use Find a Representative to get their phone number and email address. Many Michigan House members votes yes on this same bill last May except for the addition in our version this year of the $1 million budget appropriation for an invasive species reaction fund. You can use the following example as talking notes and email example.

Ask your state Representative to please:

  1. Come to Lansing on August 27th to vote YES on the Scientific Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act!
  2. Support the use of Sound Science for fish and game management;
  3. Support funds to stop invasive species;
  4. Support free hunting & fishing licenses for active duty military!

A no vote on the Scientific Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act is a vote in support of the anti-hunting, anti-fishing agenda, and against free fishing and hunting licenses for active military members. How many elected officials really want to do that once they understand the consequences, and that you care enough to contact them.

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Category: Conservation News Posts

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