Scott Faulkner has been an outdoors person all his life. 

“My father would hunt, and I would go with him,” he said. “We loved to hunt woodchucks. We’d go squirrel hunting. When I got to be about 12, I’d go with him during deer season.” 

A couple of years later, he began hunting small game, and a couple of years after that, he was bowhunting. 

He’s been doing that all through the half-century since. 

Why? 

“I like being out in nature,” he said. “I get to see stuff most people never get to see.” 

For example? 

He related the time when, during a turkey hunt, a weasel chased a baby rabbit right over the boots of his hunting partner, Larry Chandler, and into some nearby cover. That did not end well for the rabbit, but it was real, and it was a close-to-the-bone moment you are not going to experience while sitting on your couch. 

His long experience led Faulkner into advocacy for sportsmen, serving many years as an officer in local clubs, and now as the Region 6 representative to the Conservation Fund Advisory Board. The Vernon Center resident has been on the job since June of 2022, taking over for the late Dave Corr, who held the position for more than a decade. 

The board is made of representatives from the Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) 11 regions. The Region 7 – including Madison County – member is Shari Dann, professor of Environmental Studies at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. All must have interest, experience, and knowledge of the outdoors, and must hold or have recently held a New York hunting, fishing, or trapping license.  

Members are not paid but do receive travel expenses. Meetings are held monthly in Albany other than July, August, and November, and minutes of recent meetings are published on the DEC website at https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/566.html. 

“Our job is to look at how the money is spent, consider how can we raise more money, who is charging what to what,” Faulkner said. “We make sure the money (in the Conservation Fund) is spent properly.” 

Representatives also are charged with informing the public about DEC programs, generating annual reports on the fiscal needs of the fund and how they can be met, assisting the DEC in expanding sources of income, providing advice on the needs of fish and wildlife programs, and promoting participation in fishing, hunting and trapping and the management of the state’s natural resources. 

A member of the New York State Outdoorsmen Hall of Fame, Faulkner has been extremely active in the outdoor community. He has served as an officer in the Vernon Rod and Gun Club and the Federated Sportsmen’s Clubs of Oneida County for many years and has been heavily involved in the New York State Conservation Council and the Region 6 Fish and Wildlife Management Board, has coordinated youth turkey and goose hunts, and has been honored with several volunteer awards. 

Over the last year and a half, he has found the issues facing the board and the duties involved to be more complicated than he had imagined. 

For example, he found the DEC’s recently produced video on its deer harvest report to be revealing.’ 

“I never realized what it takes to do that program,” he said. 

(A video explaining the process is available here, and both are worth your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-o78lvca3Q. An explanation also can be found on the DEC website https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/47738.html.) 

And providing the money to support the DEC’s programs is always a worry. 

“We discuss what our license sales are,” he said. “When is the next time we’ll need an increase? Will we need one five years down the road? Recent license sales are holding their own, with sales in 2022 about the same as in 2019.” 

Other issues include the future of the pheasant stocking program, the recruitment of youth and women as a means of maintaining the state’s outdoor heritage, and the implications of the state’s ammunition and firearms surcharge, used to fund the state’s SAFE Act. 

“We constantly watch the laws that are being made and how this will affect license sales,” Faulkner said. “Because of the ammo surcharge ($2.50 per purchase; there is a $9 surcharge on firearms sales), some people might say the heck with it and not buy a license. And other people are going out of state to buy ammunition. That affects taxes.” 

Faulkner also feels outdoors people are negatively impacted by lawmakers from downstate who have little or no interest in hunting, fishing, or trapping, an age-old complaint related to many other issues besides the outdoors. 

In any case, Faulkner intends to continue to represent the outdoors community as best he can. He can be reached at 315-225-0192 or at [email protected]. 

Write to John Pitarresi at 60 Pearl Street, New Hartford, N.Y. 13413 or [email protected] or call him at 315-724-5266.