Hunting: reduced-price antelope, elk, bear, and bighorn sheep tags: resident junior hunters.

Under existing law, a hunting license grants the privilege to take birds and mammals. Existing law provides for the issuance by the Department of Fish and Wildlife of tags that are required in addition to a hunting license to take specified animals, including antelope, elk, bears, and bighorn rams. Existing law sets the fee for tags for those animals for a resident of the state as follows: $55 for an antelope tag, $165 for an elk tag, $15 for a bear tag, and $400 for a bighorn sheep tag. Existing law requires those fees to be adjusted annually pursuant to a specified index. This bill would, beginning July 1, 2019, and until July 1, 2025, reduce the fee required to obtain an antelope, elk, bear, or bighorn sheep tag to $20, as adjusted pursuant to the specified index, for a person who is a resident of the state and who possesses a junior hunting license. The bill would require the department to prepare a report to the Legislature no later than July 1, 2024, on the effect of these reduced-price tags on rates of participation by junior hunters, the Big Game Management Account, and the Fish and Game Preservation Fund. The bill would make other related and conforming changes.