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March 16, 2016

A Billion Reasons to Spread the Word on WSFR


On March 7, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that more than $1.1 billion will be available to state fish and wildlife agencies this year through the Wildlife Sport Fish Restoration (WSFR) Program. The funds, generated from excise taxes on the sale on firearms, ammunition, archery and fishing equipment, will be allocated so that state agencies can manage fish and wildlife populations, offer hunter education courses, develop shooting ranges and improve other programs of importance to sportsmen. Find out how much each state will receive.

As it stands today, WSFR dollars are a core source of funding for state agencies. Without them, hunters would not have access to millions of acres of land, students could not take hunter education and target shooters would be without numerous public shooting ranges across the nation.

“Firearms and ammunition manufacturers have long been an integral part of this unique funding mechanism, collecting the excise taxes that hunters and shooters pay on their products and providing those funds to the federal government prior to distribution to state wildlife agencies,” said Steve Sanetti, NSSF President and CEO. “The WSFR program is the lynchpin that holds the U.S. conservation together. It’s a system that all sportsmen and women participate in and can be proud of.”

With the announcement of the 2016 funding, the USFWS’s Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program will have provided more than $18 billion for conservation and outdoor recreation opportunities—funds that benefit all Americans, not just hunters, target shooters and anglers. This method of conservation funding, begun in in 1937, continues to provide a strong foundation for America’s conservation model.

NSSF asks all our industry members to help spread the word about the value WSFR provides America’s sportsmen and sportswomen. This infographic explains the Pittman-Robertson Act, which supports the wildlife portion of the WSFR equation. For the first time this year, this infographic is also available in Spanish. For your Spanish-language infographic, contact Samantha Pedder, NSSF Manager, Diversity and Outreach, at spedder@nssf.org.

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Tags: conservation hunting R3 Reactivation Recruitment Retention shooting sports State Wildlife Agencies Wildlife Wildlife Sport Fish Restoration Program WSFR

Categories: R3