What say you??? Invasive Species or greed??

[DG]

Eat Invasive Species!!

I would rather add $10 to the couple thousand I spend on fishing each year than have a reservoir ecosystem irrevocably altered by the introduction of something nasty. And for those who think it doesn't really hurt if another species or two gets added, I would like to point out that during the Christmas Bird Count around here, roughly HALF of the birds counted were exotic species. One of every two birds in the area. Makes you wonder what might have been here if they weren't.

[Trigg]

Remember folks, we are talking about, local, state and federal governments here, LOGIC is out the window and has no place in these equations. Sorry state of affairs but governments have become a huge monster and our politians have taxed and fee-ed us beyond belief. Every government wants their share and more of our dollars. Logic, there is none and I'm afraid it will not get any better. Y'all take care, John.

Well, let's see...

a) The State of Wyoming has a program to prevent the spread of invasive species in the state's waters. (Seems like it would be irresponsible not to.)

b) They can fund these efforts by taxing all the citizens of the state, or... by imposing a fee on the people who actually might have a hand in spreading the invasive species. (So that's what they have chosen to do.)

I'm not sure I see a logic failure in this. (Although I understand the feeling of being nickel and dimed.) I do notice that as part of Wyoming G&Fs ongoing gouge-a-greenie program, the fee for out-of-staters is 3 times the fee for state residents.

And as a data point for Wyomingoids, as a Colorado resident, it cost me $35 to register my 8ft pontoon boat with 36 pound trolling motor in the state of Colorado.

[Chuck S]

Does your Colorado reservoirs keep water in them? Here the decals were for preventing Zebra and Quagga mussles and that's all according to the deputy Chief at Wyo F&Game. Our reservoirs do not keep stable levels of water in them as our water belongs to primarily Nebraska and a bunch of instate irrigators that use it at will and drain the reservoirs on an annual or more often basis. You are close enough so come on up and take a look at the big reservoir right out of Wheatland, and then come back during the late fall, you'll see it's almost disappeared! So if there's little to no danger for invasive infestation why have the stickers???? That was primarily my point! I can see a couple big fairly stable reservoirs requiring protection but here in this state there's no more than a handful at most that will fall into this category! That plus why tax some, the boaters, when you are missing the biggest bunch of users, ie the wade anglers? Of course there is a one word reply. Bureaucracy! A typical reservoir is just above us in the mountains, Turpin, last year and most every year they drop it 20 ft plus, almost draining it! Far too much too allow any kind of niche where the invasive Quaggas and Zebras can start growing..

[Trigg]

... why tax some, the boaters, when you are missing the biggest bunch of users, ie the wade anglers?

They couldn't get the boot decals to stay on

Well, I don't know if Wyoming is immune to invasive species, but I do know that you guys are getting off pretty easy when it comes to taxes and fees in general. (But I agree that whatever you pay, you should feel like it goes to a good purpose.) It could be worse, Colorado DOW added a buck to everyone's license a few years ago so they could run TV ads promoting themselves.

[DG]

If you want actual facts...

Daily updated zebra mussel map of US (zoomable): http://nas2.er.usgs.gov/viewer/omap.aspx?SpeciesID=5

Daily updated quagga mussel map of US (zoomable) http://nas2.er.usgs.gov/viewer/omap.aspx?SpeciesID=95

Yes, there are both in Colorado.

Fact sheets for both species are available at those links.

The overall page has more maps and information: http://nas.er.usgs.gov/taxgroup/mollusks/zebramussel/

[Chuck S]

Thanks for those maps. I had seen them before but didn't book mark them. As I said nada for Wyoming and that can be easily explained as Colorado has much better record for keeping their water; for not drawing down reservoirs to the muddy water hole levels for instate or other irrigators; and for attracting folks from out of state to join the many anglers that use boats and fish your waters. I've lived in both states and it's day and night!

[DG]

I don't know what CO reservoirs you are thinking of, but the ones I am familiar with have a lot of drawdown each year. And we do inspections on the ones most used by motorboats. And have even mountain lakes posted with ANS signs to educate boaters and anglers.

[Chuck S]

No kidding! When I lived there, Colorado Springs, I seldom saw any reservoirs drawn down as they are here but apparently that has changed for the worse. I've heard for several years now that the situation was actually improving in Colorado due to instream flow, etc regulations, but apparently this isn't the case. I suppose then that the big difference then must be the large amount of use your reservoirs get by out pof state boaters? Last I heard Colorado is spending around $4M on this program while Wyoming is pushing $1 M annually.

[Poke 'Em]

It's a whole lot cheaper to spend money to prevent the problem than it is to spend money to fix the problem.

[Uncle Jesse]

Wyoming is the 10th largest state with the lowest number of residents of any state. I did a little quick research and math; I live in Gwinnett County, GA, the second most populous county in the state. Wyoming has approximately 70% of the population and 224 times the area of this county. There has to be a certain amount of mixed cost to operating a state government that is there regardless of population, roads, etc. The temptation to take a good cause and use it to collect fees from citizens is hard for a politician to let slip away, unless it is going to prevent them from being re-elected. I suspect someone saw the issue, maybe a really concerned official, and suddenly someone saw it as an opportunity to create revenue.

I think you have a shade of gray, maybe a dark shade, but there are probably some good intentions and some greed for the money of the fisherman. Everyone knows fly fishermen are all millionaires; did you ever look at what they pay for rods and reels? (Intended as sarcasm)