New Hampshire’s Fish and Game Department is facing a budget crunch after Governor Kelly Ayotte intervened to halt proposed hunting and fishing license fee increases that the agency had sought after a decade of flat funding — a move drawing scrutiny given the election-year timing.
Why It Matters
Outdoor recreation generated $3.9 billion for the New Hampshire economy in 2023, and the Fish and Game Department relies almost entirely on hunting and fishing license revenue to operate. With that fee schedule unchanged since 2016, the agency’s purchasing power has eroded significantly as costs have risen.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, $1,000 in 2016 is the equivalent of roughly $1,395 today — meaning the department has effectively absorbed a 40 percent cut in real revenue over the past decade without any fee adjustment.
What Happened
Fish and Game submitted its biennial report to Ayotte and the Executive Council in October, with department director Stephanie Simek noting that the agency’s core funding had remained relatively flat throughout the biennium. Following community discussions, Fish and Game developed and proposed a new fee schedule to address the gap.
Ayotte directed the department to pull back the proposed rules before they could advance. The governor has publicly opposed increasing fishing license fees, and in her public statements she has described the fee increases in terms typically reserved for tax hikes — a framing critics say conflates two distinct mechanisms.
The governor also recently vetoed a separate bill that would have established a paint can stewardship fee, suggesting a broader pattern of resistance to any fee-based funding mechanisms during her current term.
By the Numbers
- 10 years since hunting and fishing license fees were last meaningfully updated
- 2016 — the last time Fish and Game revised its fee schedule
- $2 — the proposed increase for seasonal hunting and fishing licenses
- $175 — proposed fee for lifetime combination licenses purchased in a child’s first year
- $300 to $475 — the jump in lifetime combination license costs under the now-shelved proposal
Fred Bird of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, which backed the proposed changes, put the situation plainly: “They haven’t had a substantial increase in 10 years. They’re overdue.”
Zoom Out
The tension between funding conservation agencies through user fees versus resisting any cost increases ahead of an election is not unique to New Hampshire. Fish and wildlife agencies in numerous states rely on the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson federal excise tax frameworks, supplemented by state license revenues. When state fees stagnate, departments increasingly depend on those federal transfers — which themselves depend on firearm, ammunition, and fishing equipment sales.
Notably, Ayotte is a member of the governors’ caucus of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation — the same organization that publicly supports the fee increases she blocked. The Foundation’s position reflects a broadly held view among conservation professionals that stable, user-based funding is essential to long-term wildlife management.
What’s Next
With the proposed fee rules pulled back at the governor’s direction, Fish and Game has no clear path to a fee adjustment in the near term. The department will need to manage its budget within existing revenue constraints unless Ayotte changes course or the Executive Council takes independent action.
The fee question is unlikely to disappear. As inflation continues to widen the gap between 2016 fee levels and current operating costs, pressure on Fish and Game’s budget will grow — leaving the department and lawmakers to weigh the political calculus against the practical needs of one of the state’s most economically significant recreational sectors.