A Texas lawmaker recently proposed a bill to scrap the state’s wildlife management agency, before abandoning the effort after being roundly criticized. State representative Pat Curry, a Republican from Waco, initially filed House Bill 4938 on Thursday, March 13. Curry is a member of the state’s “Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency," which is modeled after Elon Musk’s DOGE.
The proposed bill would have “abolished” the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and transferred its duties to three other state agencies. The bill received a muted reception from other lawmakers and was opposed by conservation groups.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, the nonprofit partner of TPWD, argued that the TPWD is “an agency that has demonstrated efficacy and delivered positive results for Texans, addressing our state’s greatest conservation challenges and opportunities—from the shores of the Gulf Coast to the mountains of West Texas.”
In a public online forum, Curry wrote that his bill was an “attempt to improve upon a critical agency that's lost its way when it comes to fulfilling its role of protecting landowners, farmers, ranchers, parks, water ways, the hunting community, and business rights—which includes the deer breeding industry which accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars to the Texas economy.”
In that forum statement, Curry noted that he is a deer breeder but later told Chron.com that he is “not a licensed deer breeder, nor have I ever profited from any such venture.” Regardless, Curry told Chron.com that his main goal in filing the bill—which he later said he would not attempt to move forward in the legislature—had to do with deer breeding regulations.
“I felt filing the bill was necessary to get the agency's attention after discussions over proposed regulations on deer breeders had failed," he said. "These proposed regulations, all in the name of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) threaten to infringe upon our private property and small business owner rights."
Captive deer breeding operations in the Lone Star State has been a flashpoint in recent years. Transfers of deer from high fence operations have been known to increase the spread of CWD. In response, TPWD officials have sometimes mandated the culling of entire herds after CWD detections, to the chagrin of some ranchers, who claim such actions are government overreach.
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According to the National Deer Association (NDA), however, “CWD is the most serious long-term threat to the future of wild deer and deer hunting that we face today … because CWD’s impacts are difficult to see on the landscape now or won’t become serious for many years in most areas, it is easy for some to dismiss or disregard the danger. NDA believes we must engage the disease today, and slow or stop the continued spread to new areas now, to protect wild deer and hunting for future generations.”
