In Brief

MDC and the Pittman-Robertson Act

Serving nature and you for 85 years

This year marks the 85th anniversary of conservation history being made both in Missouri and across the nation.

In Missouri in 1937, our work began when citizen-led efforts created MDC and the Missouri Conservation Commission. The non-political, science-focused state conservation agency was a new and unique concept for the time. Our beginnings 85 years ago came at a time when Missouri’s fisheries, forests, and wildlife populations were largely decimated from the commercial overharvest of these resources and support for conservation was often tied to political interests.

In Washington in 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, popularly known as the Pittman–Robertson Act (PRA). Sponsored by Senator Key Pittman of Nevada and Congressman A. Willis Robertson of Virginia, the first-of-its-kind legislation provided federal funds through grants to states for wildlife restoration, wildlife habitat, and wildlife management research.

The PRA established a manufacturers’ excise tax on guns, ammunition, and archery equipment. The taxes are collected from manufacturers and then distributed annually as grants to states and territorial areas by the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. States typically must provide an investment of one dollar for every three dollars in federal funding that is granted. In most cases, state hunting and fishing license fees are used to meet this matching requirement.

The PRA has been amended over the decades to also include funding for hunter education programs, for the development and operation of public shooting ranges, and for “recruitment, retention, and reactivation” to boost the numbers of hunters, trappers, and recreational shooters.

“Federal reimbursement monies from the Pittman–Robertson Act have been and continue to be an essential source of funding for MDC,” said MDC Director Sara Parker Pauley. “Without those funds over the past 85 years, we would not have been able to restore deer and turkey populations around the state, bring back once-native elk to the Ozarks, fund our hunter education program and dozens of shooting ranges around the state, or do much of the extensive wildlife habitat restoration and wildlife research done by MDC staff.”

Pauley added that over the decades and into today, the PRA has provided funding for MDC to establish and manage more than 1 million acres of wildlife habitat around the state, including more than 1,000 conservation areas and natural areas along with river accesses and nature centers.

In Missouri, the PRA also helps fund MDC’s five staffed and 70 unstaffed shooting ranges around the state.

Funds from the PRA also provide hunter education training and certification to thousands of Missouri hunters each year. Over its 85-year history, MDC has provided hunter education training and certification to about 1.4 million Missourians.

The PRA also continues to be essential in providing MDC funding for key habitat management, conservation research, and wildlife restoration for numerous wildlife species, including white-tailed deer, wild turkey, quail, waterfowl, elk, and others.

Federal reimbursements, such as from the PRA, account for about 14 percent of MDC’s annual revenue. Other principal sources of MDC revenue come from the sale of hunting and fishing permits, the dedicated conservation sales tax of one-eighth of one percent, and revenue from the administration of forest, fish, and wildlife resources.

For more information on the Pittman-Robertson Act, visit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service online at short.mdc.mo.gov/4cn.

For more information on how we spend our revenue on taking care of nature, connecting people with nature, and maintaining public trust, read the latest MDC Annual Review in the January 2022 issue of the Missouri Conservationist online at short.mdc.mo.gov/4ch.

Honor Missouri Conservationists with MDC Awards

We are seeking nominations of Missourians who make or have made outstanding contributions to conservation in Missouri for the Master Conservationist award and Missouri Conservation Hall of Fame award. The deadline for nominations is Dec. 31.

The Master Conservationist award honors living or deceased Missourians while the Missouri Conservation Hall of Fame award recognizes deceased individuals.

Get more information, criteria, and nomination forms for each award from the MDC website at short.mdc.mo.gov/Zyp and short.mdc.mo.gov/ZyG.

Veterans Day

In honor of Veterans Day, MDC offices will be closed for all business, including permit sales, on Friday, Nov. 11. You can still buy Missouri hunting and fishing permits on that day from numerous vendors around the state, online at mdc.mo.gov/permits, or through MDC’s free mobile apps, MO Hunting and MO Fishing, available for download through Google Play or the App Store.