Joe,



You'll get no argument from me about that point. I don't think TP&W has EVER had more than one person that knew much of anything about herpetology. Unfortunately, TP&W is one of the few state agencies that is essentially self-funded. In other words for the most part, they do not get a lot of funding from the state's general fund. Most of their funding is generated by the agency itself in the form of license sales, permits, stamps, a percentage of all TP&W fines, etc. Most of their programs are expected to pay for themselves. Without a sizable amount of income being generated from the herp sector they will never be in a position to have more than one herpetologist on staff. Sometimes. I'm surprised that they keep one on staff at all. I'm sure that there are some folks at TP&W that wish that we would just go away. Since they are hamstrung and can't really manage the program, I suspect that their approach is to just let the LE Division enforce us out of existance.



In regards to why the TP&W wardens don't want to enforce trafffic laws and say that is not their function, that is really more a question about money also. Texas Game Wardens have been full-blown fully-commissioned state peace officers since 1957 and have the same enforcement authority as any other state peace officer. They all take the same oath of office as all other peace officers in the state do and swear to uphold and enforce all laws....not just TP&W laws. One of the primary reasons that they and the agency are not interested in doing so is that if they arrest a DWI, write a traffic citation, etc. none of the fine money from those fines goes into the TP&W coffers...it all goes into the local county coffers. However, if they make an arrest or write a citation for some violation of the TP&W law or rules, then a certain percentage of that fine money goes back to TP&W instead of going to the county. That is most probably one reason that they want to deal with the purported traffic-safety issue with a new road-hunting law that would be a TP&W violation as opposed to using existing state traffic laws that do not generate any money for TP&W. It all seems to come down to an issue of money and putting money into the TP&W coffers.



With that kind of background, I don't ever see us getting into a much better position with them usless we can show them that somehow they can make a "well-run" non-game herp program to become basically self-sustaining. And what they have now and have always had is anything but a well-run program for herps.
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Gerald Keown

Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

www.southwesternherp.com

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