The Conservation Crossroads:
The Eleven Percent Solution

Ted Lee Eubanks

January 11, 2004

For over 50 years the recreations of hunting and fishing have funded wildlife conservation efforts in this country. There is no question that this is true, and whether or not sportsmen have voluntarily contributed or have been forced through license sales and excise taxes is for practical purposes moot. The monies have flowed into the USFWS, and that agency has then distributed the funds to the states.

Here are most mechanisms by which these conservation funds are collected. First, the agencies sell licenses to hunt and fish. Since there is no license for birding, the recreation is exempt from such a fee. Therefore I recommend that birders voluntarily pay a comparable fee. For example, the Texas super combo license (hunting and fishing, with state waterfowl and turkey stamps included) is $59. Birders should contribute a comparable amount.

In addition, waterfowl hunters contribute an additional amount by purchasing the federal duck stamp. The funds are then used to finance the National Wildlife Refuge system. The duck stamp may be purchased at your local post office, and will cost $15. Birders should purchase the same.

In review, hunters and anglers in Texas will pay at most $74 in license fees this year. My solution has been to simply purchase the same. Yes, this means that my birding dollars are now tallied as being contributed by a hunter (I neither hunt nor fish). If this is bothersome to birders, then I recommend simply taking the $74 and contributing that amount directly to a conservation organization or agency.

In addition to license fees, hunters and anglers pay an excise tax on equipment and supplies (in truth, the manufactures pay the tax who then pass the expense on to the recreationists). The hunting version of this tax is enabled by the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, better known as Pittman-Robertson (PR). The fishing version is the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act (Dingell-Johnson or DJ). PR levies an 11% tax on sporting arms and ammunition, and a 10% tax on handguns.

The durable goods such as sporting arms are analogous to birding binoculars, scopes, tripods, etc. Therefore I recommend that birders voluntarily contribute an additional 11% of that which is spent annually on such durable goods. Simply keep a tally of your equipment expenses during the year, and contribute the 11% at the beginning of the following year.

Ammunition, like bait and boating fuel, is nondurable or consumable. I would certainly agree that birders purchase "birding" fuel. Yet birders have no expense comparable to ammunition or bait. Most of us feed (bait) birds in our yards, however, and we attract birds around our homes to be able to watch them. Therefore, I suggest that we consider bird feeding expenses to be our version of a consumable good. Simply sum your bird feeding expenses for the year, and contribute 11% of that amount to bird conservation.

I will offer myself as an example. I have purchased my hunting license and duck stamp for 2004, so that contribution has been made. In 2003, I estimate that I spent around $2,000 on birding equipment (I purchased new binoculars this past year), so I am adding 11% or $220 to my contribution. I also estimate that I spent $1500 on bird feeding in 2003, so I am going to add $165 to my contribution as well.

Therefore I will make the following contributions to bird conservation:

Of course, this is not the limit to what I will contribute in 2004 to bird conservation. Hunters contribute additional funds through organizations such as Duck Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Federation. I will continue to support organizations such as Audubon and The Nature Conservancy as they work to protect and restore bird habitats. I will also continue to support the American Birding Association as it promotes my recreation.

However, I would like for my recreational contribution (the $385 above and beyond my license fees) to go directly to both the recreation and the resource. With PR and DJ, funds are available for hunter training and education, the promotion of fishing, and the construction of boat ramps. I want part of my contribution to fund the construction of trails, blinds, and bird feeders. I want my recreation, as well as the resource it depends on, to prosper.

Here is how I plan to advance this idea. First, there is an existing fund within Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPW) titled the Nongame and Endangered Species Conservation Fund. The Texas legislature originally created the fund to receive the proceeds of the nongame stamp sales in the state. Since the stamp no longer exists, the fund is effectively inactive.

Therefore I have proposed to TPW that we use this fund in 2004 to receive the contributions of Texas Eleven Percenters. The specific purpose of contributions to the Texas Eleven Percenter fund will be to conserve birds and their habitats in Texas and to promote the recreation of birding in our state. Simple and straightforward.

Therefore I am writing two checks to TPW today as a Texas Eleven Percenter. I will send TPW a personal check for $385 that represents 11% of my birding equipment and supply expenses in 2003. In addition, I am sending TPW a check from my company, FEMATA, in the amount of $1,100 that will represent the first Texas Eleven Percenter corporate donation.

Here are the advantages to this approach:

1. The "tax" is strictly voluntary and self assessed.
2. By applying the 11% voluntary tax at the retail rather than wholesale level more funds are raised.
3. The funds are contributed voluntarily, and therefore better demonstrate the commitment of birders to the conservation of birds and their habitats.
4. The voluntary tax is transparent, rather than hidden as with PR.
5. By donating directly to the state we avoid the administrative expenses (nearing 8%) of PR.
6. Rather than waiting for political support and legislative action, we can implement this program immediately.

Therefore I am working (strictly voluntarily) with TPW to create the nation’s first Eleven Percenter fund. My goal is to create the model in Texas and then to export the concept to the remaining states. By 2005, we should have 50 state Eleven Percenter funds, each directly funded and controlled by the interested recreationists and agencies in their respective states.

Finally, I would like to see our Texas Eleven Percenters recognized for their contributions. I have volunteered to work with TPW to create a Texas Eleven Percenter patch that will be sent to contributors each year. The patch will show a different bird species from the state each year. The name of the state will be at the top of the patch, and the year of the contribution will be detailed at the bottom. Across the image of the bird will be "11%."

I have every faith that Texas birders will be willing to contribute to bird conservation and their recreation is this fashion. I certainly do not want to take away from any of the myriad conservation efforts in the state, but I do recognize the power that will flow from such a direct contribution to our state wildlife agency. Consider this. If there are only 250 other Eleven Percenters in this state whose annual expenses are similar to my own, we will be able to raise $100,000 for birding and bird conservation in our first year alone. Multiply that amount by 50 states, and we will have raised five million additional dollars for bird conservation in this country. I do not need to tell you the impact that even these first year contributions would have.

In addition, we need to attract the retailers to our ranks. As an Eleven Percenter I want to do business with other Eleven Percenters. Here is what I propose.

If you are a retailer (a Wild Birds Unlimited, for example), become part of the Eleven Percent initiative. When I come into your store, I will identify myself as an Eleven Percenter (and I would hope that the store would do the same). When I am ready to check out, increase the pre-tax price of my supplies (bird seed, for example) by 5.5%. That's right, INCREASE the price.

Then, as an Eleven Percent store, agree to match that contribution (the additional 5.5% that I am willing to pay for my seed). Send the resulting 11% to your state's Eleven Percent Fund.

If we can attract a measurable percentage of the birding market to our effort, then stores will benefit from participating (since I am only willing to spend my money with other Eleven Percent participants). I am not asking the retailers to agree to any compulsory or mandatory program. I am not asking retailers to raise their prices to all customers, only to those who volunteer to pay the additional amount. Therefore these participating stores will not lose any competitive advantage with the general public who may never choose to participate but who do purchase birdseed and feeders. This is simply a way of allowing market forces to work for conservation.

I would love to see the optic retailers, for example, join suit. When I purchase a new pair of $1,000 binoculars from you, increase the price by 5.5% or $55. Match my $55 and then send the resulting $110 to the state's Eleven Percent fund as another contribution from the state's birders. Again, this is a strictly voluntary program. There is no agency in charge, and no bureaucracy to fund. Our combined contributions will be transferred directly to the appropriate fund within each state agency.

Let’s be honest, though. Even with this solution, birding will arrive at a critical crossroads. Here is the choice. We can dilute the power of birder contributions and spread them around willy-nilly. This is precisely the situation now. Or, we can combine our forces and focus our contributions toward a single destination. This is the path that I am suggesting.

Of course I am not saying do not support the myriad conservation efforts and organizations that you have in the past. I have every intention of doing so. But for Eleven Percenters to be effective, we should invest these "user dollars" where they register. We should invest them where they count.

Let's use Texas as an example. Texas Parks and Wildlife has already established a wildlife diversity program, and the resource protection and endangered species programs there, for example, have been in existence for decades. A fund has already been established to collect dollars from the public in this regard (Nongame and Endangered Resources Conservation Fund). In other words, the mechanism is already in place.

More importantly, this fund exists within the agency that already tallies hunting and fishing dollars. In a real sense, TPW and allied game and wildlife agencies are the scorekeepers. TPW manages millions of acres of public land in Texas (state parks, as well as state game lands or WMAs), and TPW field personnel have working relationships with thousands of private landowners throughout the state. To be perfectly blunt, there is no not-for-profit conservation organization in the state with so comprehensive a reach.

More importantly, funds from the wildlife diversity program are frequently distributed to the not-for-profit organizations for specific projects around Texas. Therefore a percentage of the dollars that are contributed by birders to TPW will wend their way back to the NFP world.

Here is an example of how I would like to see Eleven Percent funds used in Texas. The states are all involved in developing state wildlife conservation plans. These comprehensive reports will guide bird conservation efforts at the state level for decades. States receive federal funding to develop these plans, but a match is required. There are a number of states that are struggling to raise the funds for this match. I cannot think of an effort more important to bird conservation than the development and implementation of these conservation plans, and we birders can help the states in this regard. Eleven Percent funds, since they are not federal in origin, are eligible to be used as a match. In that way, our Eleven Percent funds are leveraged with federal dollars and our impact proportionately grows.

Let's keep the Eleven Percent effort simple. I would ask participants to begin an Eleven Percent effort in each respective state. Meet with your state's wildlife diversity program personnel, and identify the proper fund to receive these contributions in your state. I believe that I will be able to connect with many of these people in the next several months at a number of conferences and meetings, but I believe that this should be a homegrown effort. We will develop prototype patches, decals, stickers, etc., and Mary Jeanne and I are working on a one-page bullet sheet that summarizes the program. I am also committed to developing a brief PowerPoint of the program, and we will make that available as well.

Please understand that I am no less committed to supporting effective organizations and initiatives than in the past, although I will admit that I am less enamored with the purported efficacy of the NGO approach than most. I simply want to establish a simple, transparent, direct method by which we birders demonstrate our willingness to pay for the resources that our recreation depends on. That contribution needs to register politically as well as biologically.

We can do this. We do not need to wait for political will or consensus. We do not need the stars to be aligned. We simply need to devise a simple plan and implement it.

Want to make a contribution in Texas?

Send your check (payable to TPW Nongame and Endangered Resources Conservation Fund) to:

Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept.
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, Texas 78744

ATT: John Herron

And write Eleven Percenter on the check

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