Sharing our natural resources is something all sportsmen and women must do to ensure our place in the future of wildlife recreation.

The Sportsmen’s Alliance is pleased to announce that the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act recently.

“The House has yet again passed these critically important measures by a wide, bi-partisan margin,” said Evan Heusinkveld. “These items now join the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act in the Senate. Sportsmen and women should cal their Senators today and urge quick passage of these pro-sportsman measures.”

While the bill contains many provisions important to hunters, anglers, trappers and recreational shooters, the Open Until Closed portion of the bill has been an important goal of the Sportsmen’s Alliance, and one in which we have played an instrumental role. Highlights of the bill include:

• Open Until Closed: Requiring lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) be open for hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting unless specifically closed for cause. This action helps to prevent lawsuits by national anti-hunting groups attempting to use the courts to stop hunting opportunities on public land.
• Removal the gray wolf from the protections of the Endangered Species Act in the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where population levels have exploded past stated recovery goals.
• Preventing the EPA or other federal agencies other than the Fish and Wildlife Service from regulating the use of lead in ammunition or fishing weights and sinkers. This action is necessary to stop anti-hunting and -fishing groups from using the courts to force the EPA to ban traditional ammunition and fishing tackle.
• Language allowing for archery equipment to be transported across National Park Service lands.
• Increasing state wildlife management authority to use Pittman-Robertson funding for acquiring land for shooting ranges, and providing liability protection to public ranges.

The bill now heads for the U.S. Senate where it joins S. 556 and S. 659 awaiting action by the full Senate.

(Original article posted by the Sportsmens Alliance)