Plans are underway to remove some of the best fishing waters in Tennessee from public access. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently confirmed plans to ban boat access below several dams, including Old Hickory, Cheatham, J. Percy Priest, Cordell Hull, Center Hill, and Dale Hollow. 

District Commander Lt. Col. Jim DeLapp is claiming safety as the chief concern, but the numbers don't support it. Of all the deaths that have occurred on Tennessee's rivers and reservoirs over the last 50 years, less than three percent were below the dams. And almost all of those were the result of failure to wear or properly inflate a life jacket as required by law.

Several efforts were brought forth in this legislative session to weaken or harm Tennessee’s fish and wildlife management model, and the agency that implements it. Below is a summary of bills that the Tennessee Wildlife Federation actively worked to either pass or defeat.

If you were one of the people who took the time to engage in the public policy process through our website and e-mail system, we want to say thank you. Your voice made a difference in letting lawmakers know that Tennesseans – especially sportsmen and women – aren’t interested in politicizing wildlife and natural resources management.

UPDATE - Representative Frank Niceley has filed a NEW deer farming bill HB3164 which is written more broadly than last year's bill. HB3164 as written will not only allow for the importation and privatization of white-tailed deer, but it will also allow for the capture of wild Tennessee white-tails and the sale of venison; all to be regulated by the Department of Agriculture. Thus, this bill single-handedly will set back wildlife management in Tennessee nearly a hundred years and reinstate a form of market shooting and sale of Tennessee's wild and public white-tailed deer resource.

The bill is listed below, as well as new information that Chronic Wasting Disease, originally in farmed deer in Missouri, has now been found in WILD white-tailed deer harvest within 2 miles of the farmed-deer facility.