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Texas Agriculture Archive

July 4, 2003

Veto eliminates wildlife
damage management funds

Just days after the veto of the entire budget of the Texas A&M University System's Texas Wildlife Damage Management Service, the agency's director says he hopes to find a way to keep the doors open for the coming biennium.

"We're talking with the governor's office and others to see if there is any way this situation can be rectified," said director Gary Nunley, whose agency employs 195 people and provides services in 220 counties.

The governor's veto eliminates the $6.9 million state appropriation from the agency's budget, which directly funds 87 employees and funds most of the direct services provided by the agency. The lack of state support, Nunley explained, also jeopardizes 74 other positions that are funded through cooperative agreements with local funds, totaling $4.5 million statewide. Federal cooperative funding may also be threatened if the agency is forced to shut down, Nunley said.

"We are committed to work with the governor's office and key legislative leaders to preserve these vital services," he said.

The Texas agency is the largest wildlife damage management agency in the country. Each year, it provides primarily predator control services to more than 5,000 properties with more than 20 million acres.

Loss of the agency also would lead to a significant reduction in the state's ability to monitor for plague, rabies and other animal diseases, Nunley said, adding it also would deal a blow to the state's surveillance efforts against foreign animal diseases, such as foot and mouth disease.

The agency during the 1990s helped pioneer a successful rabies prevention program that immunized coyotes and gray foxes in the wild by dropping baits that contained rabies vaccine from airplanes. Nunley said the activity has successfully kept rabies out the state's urban centers in South and Central Texas, but the work must continue to be fully successful against gray foxes. As much as $2.5 million in federal funding for the program may be lost if the agency's work is not continued, he noted.

In his veto message, Gov. Rick Perry said that key aspects of the agency's work could be outsourced or handled by another agency.