Hunting, at least in one consequential sense, has been caught up in the transactional. We’ll know soon what $50 million in public money buys.
While the myriad reasons for hunting’s decline over decades cover plenty of disputable ground, one plausible cause is hunters are losing real ground.
Mike Rex, a member of the Ohio Wildlife Council and a longtime trophy whitetail hunter of repute, summarized the situation during a conversation last deer season. Perhaps 25,000 acres around his Athens County property once open to hunting are open no longer, he said
Deer hunting, which drives license sales in Ohio, has taken on aspects of business. Where once landowner permission might be granted free, exclusive leases nowadays get awarded only for payment.
A few hunters are willing or able to pay; many are unwilling or cannot.
The possibility for amplified access recently got a significant boost from the Republican-dominated Ohio General Assembly in the form a capital improvements bill. The legislation contains an allocation of $25 million to acquire land for use by sportsmen and women.
Federal matching funds can double the spendable amount to $50 million.
Historically, Ohio hasn’t been a leader in providing public land. One recent estimate of federal and state land available for hunting ranked Ohio 40th among the 50 states. The 651,000 acres in total accounts for about 2.5% of all Ohio land and bestows each resident with 0.1 acre to hunt.
Gov. Mike DeWine, whose eight-year tenure as Ohio’s chief executive has been marked by an unprecedented run of land acquisitions for public use, signed the bill that drew the backing of House speaker Matt Huffman and Senate president Rob McColley.
The allocation originated from a request by the state’s divisions of Wildlife and Forestry after the current owners, BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group, let it be known it was seeking buyers for forest land in southern and southeastern Ohio.
The land was once owned by The Mead Corp., a paper and packaging producer based in Dayton, and was open off and on to limited public use.
To sway legislators, the state agencies sought help from Rob Sexton, a veteran lobbyist, strategist and currently senior vice president of the Columbus-based Sportsmen’s Alliance, a hunting and fishing advocacy group with a national reach.
Part of Sexton’s pitch was legacy. He reminded the legislative poohbahs that an opportunity to add substantial public acres might not happen again. And, if it should, the price almost certainly would be higher.
On board with the allocation is Vivek Ramaswamy, potentially Ohio’s next governor. By the way, his running mate is McColley, who was instrumental in guiding the bill through the Senate with money for land acquisition attached.
Once the spendable sum is established precisely, negotiations with the landowners can take place, Sexton said, but not until. Estimates suggest that $50 million will purchase about 25,000 acres, maybe a few more or less.
Those DeWine-appointed officials who pushed for the land purchase money almost certainly won’t be around to do the dealing whether Ramaswamy or Democrat Amy Acton wins election. Division chiefs, like those with Wildlife and Forestry, and cabinet directors get replaced under a new administration.
Ramaswamy or Acton, should either become governor after DeWine’s tenure, will be appointing the officials that will work a land deal in the likely event one isn’t completed before DeWine’s time runs out.
Negotiations can take considerable time, Sexton said.
At any rate, the plan is to use purchases to expand existing state properties woodlands south of Columbus rather than add scattered bits and pieces.
outdoors@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio might soon have more land for public hunting
Reporting by Dave Golowenski, Special to The Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Dave Golowenski, Special to The Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
