Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Legacy
You're making a bunch of great points. I could be dead wrong, but I have always wondered if these laws were a little confusing (dare I say gray) in order to allow some flexibility to the enforcing officer. That could be both good or bad. I've also noticed that not all wardens seem to interprate the regulations the same way which is good to consider when inquiring with the CDFW. There's a great blog where people ask for such interpretations and get back clear-cut answers; Check it out at http://californiaoutdoorsqas.com |
Thanks Dave. I don't know.
I think policy and regulations should be clear for them as well as for us. I think giving the "enforcers" intentional slack for being the interpreters, judge and jury would be asking for problems. I know gray areas and conflicts are riddled throughout this system, but I don't think it's intentional. Ever-expanding regulations and bureaucracies are imperfect, to say the least. What they continually invent and proclaim as law has to be road-tested and calibrated to reality, and sometimes challenged legally for clarification or rejection.
Understanding the rules we live under should come from the official current amended regs as the original source document, from official minutes of followup meetings to define language as an official addendum, and from the results of court cases under law.
Thanks for the link to Carrie Wilson. I have been searching through her blogs to try to find these answers for myself. She writes well as an interesting blogger and journalist and she cites her credentials as a sportsman and with CDFW, but she often writes opinions what are not linked to sources. Other people then quote her and the blogisphere expands.
I don't know if she is writing and rendering opinions in an official legal capacity for the CDFW, or if she's serving in more of a PR capacity, non-binding. I'm going to guess she's not a lawyer and I'm going to guess that she's not writing as a legally binding spokeswoman for the CDFW.
At this moment, and because I have only known about her for a few days, I'm going to read what she says as interesting insight based on her experience working for CDFG, but mostly as another personal opinion of an informed columnist and writer unless she anchors her opinions and interpretations with references to officially binding documents.
I can see the logo and typestyle ".gov" stamped at the top of the page, but the website url is
http://californiaoutdoorsqas.com. The reference at the bottom is WordPress.com.
Questions are submitted through the .gov website, and answered through the .com website. I don't know who is ultimately accountable for the content delivered to us by Ms. Wilson. Call me cynical, but this looks like a firewall to me.
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Please note these chosen words: "Carrie enjoys tackling the tough questions from the public and will be regularly tapping into the expertise of CDFW’s wildlife officers and many fisheries, wildlife and marine biologists to best cover all the topics."
This sounds a little squishy to me. It seems she has artistic license as a creative writer and everyone else has plausible deniability. CDFW may be reaching out for public input and/or data mining for creating policy, but I'm going to guess that what Ms. Wilson says in her regular columns is non-binding and unofficial for the CDFW. I may be completely wrong, but I think she is set up as a CDFW supported private sector liaison, technically working for herself.
Here is how Ms. Wilson presents herself in conjunction with the columns she writes:
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Columnist Carrie Wilson is a 20-year CDFW veteran and an avid outdoor enthusiast, angler and hunter. She is a marine biologist with a strong background of professional experience working in both fisheries and wildlife management. An established award-winning outdoor writer, Carrie enjoys tackling the tough questions from the public and will be regularly tapping into the expertise of CDFW’s wildlife officers and many fisheries, wildlife and marine biologists to best cover all the topics.
