The Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation has gone on record with its concerns about the impending closure of nineteen rural Ministry of Environment Offices. Humboldt is one of those offices slated for closure.

The main problem is the break in communication and services that the closures may create. Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, Darrell Crabbe,  notes that the offices are the sole point of contact between the public and ministry staff.

"They are the face to face interaction points across Saskatchewan," explains Crabbe, "and there are only going to be thirteen of them left in our province that have any time throughout the week to field inquiries."

He continues to state that hunting and angling generate over $600 million annually with the majority of that revenue being derived from rural Saskatchewan. Crabbe goes on to note, "License fees generate somewhere in the neighbourhood of $13-14 million a year into the coffers, yet we see less and less investment by the government each year into this industry." 

Another of the Federation's concerns is the decrease in the number of licenses issued due to free licenses being issued or consideration given to various demographic groups. One such group is senior citizens who are no longer required to purchase angling or hunting licenses. Crabbe explains, "We can't even track the numbers of seniors that are getting free licenses; however, we can estimate that there are about 40,000 of them." Crabbe estimates that this loss of revenue may have created an impact of up to $400,000 for the Fish and Wildlife Development Fund and up to $1.05 million a year for provincial coffers. 

Crabbe contends that if a greater proportion of licensing fees were directed to environmental services instead of general revenues, the Environment Offices would remain open and additional rural services would be supported. 

The 19 rural Ministry of Environment offices are slated to close between April 1st and October 1st, 2019.