I received the best birthday present this month: I became a bear cub cuddler. And it was all in the name of science.
At the invitation of National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearms industry trade association, I participated in a March 13th bear den study in conjunction with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. State wildlife agencies, working in concert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), conduct bear den studies through an affiliated Office of Conservation Investment (formerly Wildlife and Sport Fishing Restoration Fund) program called Partner with a Payer.
Partner with a Payer, in coordination with NSSF and USFWS, is responsible not only for bear den studies, but also for restoring other wildlife, supporting shooting sports facilities, promoting hunters education, and conserving public lands. Since 2017, this program has conducted over 87 bear projects across 17 U.S. states. The purpose of these field trips is to examine sows (female bears), check their health and that of their cubs. Lucky participants, myself included, culminate the experience cuddling with bear cubs.
The Pittman-Robertson Act, or Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937, which I frequently write about here at Townhall.com, made this once-in-a-lifetime experience possible.
“The serums, the telemetry, the darts–everything else that is going into making sure that we can get out there to see the bears–all that money is coming from Pittman Robertson dollars,” Mark Oliva, NSSF’s managing director of public affairs, said in a statement to Townhall.com. “It's a tax that our industry is very proud to pay, and we're glad to see that people are able to enjoy it.”
This year, USFWS reports $886,499,121 of the $1.3 billion - or 68 percent - is directly funded by firearm and ammunition excise taxes paid by manufacturers.
There’s an 11 percent excise tax levied on long guns and ammunition and 10 percent excise tax levied on handguns for all commercial sales and imports, respectively, that is “paid by manufacturers, producers and importers.” These monies are apportioned to all 50 states based on total land area and number of licensed hunters through the Wildlife Restoration Trust Fund. The funds, overall, support wildlife conservation, habitat restoration, hunters education, and public target shooting ranges.
That’s why Pittman-Robertson has been praised as a “good excise tax” because it’s a “user fee for hunters and fishers, where purchase of equipment acts as a proxy for the buyer’s consumption of recreational outdoor activities” that supports “wildlife management and conservation…”
“Because it respects the benefit principle so well, the tax enjoys general support among America’s sporting and outdoor community. The excise tax on hunting and fishing equipment can teach us some lessons about well-designed excise taxes,” the Tax Foundation noted.
P-R is quite popular–even among those who don’t explicitly hunt. When non-hunting firearms owners and recreational shooters were polled about this law, the majority - 86 percent - said they support it.
Despite Pittman-Robertson being an objectively non-controversial law, fringes of the Left and Right are eager to dismantle it.
The New York Times, in 2022, bemoaned this seminal conservation law and argued, “eliminating it would be a good thing.” The article concluded: “One way to get the attention of fish and game agencies, and to address the issue of funding conservation through gun sales, is to repeal the Pittman-Robertson Act.”
Equally concerning were past efforts, from the supposed pro-Second Amendment side, to repeal Pittman-Robertson to stop this alleged infringement to gun rights.
This claim was and is absurd for several reasons. One, the majority of the firearms and ammunition industry supports this law. Therefore, the infringement argument is devoid of any legitimacy. Two, P-R funds support the construction and maintenance of public target shooting ranges. Why would a law that infringes on gun rights permit this? Make it make sense.
Participating in the bear den study was a full-circle moment for me. As a hunter, I care deeply about perpetuating wildlife species and not seeing their numbers dwindle again. My recent experience confirms it’s not paradoxical to support highly-regulated hunting and bear den studies.
I’m confident the second Trump administration, as it fills out its remaining Department of Interior and USFWS positions, will prioritize hunting alongside its energy dominance agenda. It’s far more preferable to expand public lands access and bolster wildlife species than opening federal lands to affordable housing, if you ask me. But I digress.
Nevertheless, nearly $29 billion has supported true conservation efforts since 1937–thanks to this underappreciated law. At the turn of the 20th century, few black bears existed. Today, over 300,000 roam the United States–including over 2,000 in Maryland. Thanks, in large part, to gun owners and hunters.
That’s why I’ll fight to preserve the integrity of the Pittman-Robertson Act. And I hope you will, too.
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