CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s senior hunters and anglers are being asked to shell out $15 for a special rest-of-your-life license to bail the Division of Natural Resources out of a financial bind.

Within recent years, dwindling license sales have punched a gaping, $1.8 million hole in the DNR’s budget.

Under a bill Sen. Shirley Love, D-Fayette, coaxed fellow members of the Senate Finance Committee to approve Monday, anyone turning 65 after Jan. 1, 2009, would pay a one-time fee of $15.

Existing law gives seniors a free ride to hunt and fish after hitting the traditional retirement age of 65.

“The world is changing,” Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick, D-Pocahontas, said in a mini-debate that flared between Love and Sen. Karen Facemyer, R-Jackson, who voted against the bill.

“We’ve got 21 percent of the population that fishes in West Virginia. We’ve got 14 percent that hunt. Things are changing.”

Love pointed out that 90,000 more seniors will be eligible to hunt and fish free within two years in a state with one of the nation’s older populations at a time when the youth of West Virginia are less inclined to buy licenses.

“In 2006,” the senator said, “10 percent of our sportsmen were seniors and only 4 percent were new sportsmen, so it is obvious that we’re losing ground.”

What shakes out is that West Virginia captures fewer federal dollars since those monies to replenish woods and waters are based on license sales, Love said.

“The senator is correct,” the DNR’s wildlife chief, Curtis Taylor, told the panel.

By passing the bill, Taylor said, the state would get $5.25 for 10 years for every additional hunting license. He pointed out that only licenses count, not the boxes of ammo or fishing gear seniors buy.

“We’re paying 11 percent excise tax on that box of ammo,” Taylor said.

“That money is going to Texas or Pennsylvania. It’s not coming to West Virginia.”

But Facemyer said the panel needs to look at the entire picture, adding it appears the drop-off in license sales began after the state raised the cost.

She also said Ohio relatives have told her they don’t return to West Virginia any more to hunt because the state’s hunting program is too restricted.

Love disagreed about the attractions in West Virginia, saying the third week in November turns into “the largest homecoming anywhere in the eastern United States.”

Facemyer, however, said she found it “ironic” that the Senate is working on ways to give seniors a break in property taxes if they collect less than $25,000 annually on pensions but now is telling them they must buy a special license to hunt and fish.

“What we need to do is sit down and look at the overall picture,” she said.

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com