I don't see all the $$ that the WDFW thinks they bring in by "Wildlife watchers" how many extra parking passes or boat launch passes do they sell? cannot be enough for them to make any REAL money?
I think its more of an ideological shift with lip service to how much actual $$ is generated to support the ideology. Kind of like the "collective" push in the upper Methow to move from promoting snowmobiles to Cross Country Skiing. When I was working up there a lot of business's were discovering that the Cross Country Skiers were a lot tighter with there purse strings than the snowmobile crowd.
Sometimes the Ideology is cutting there own throat. I would bet dollars to donuts that the "green crowd" spends a lot less to the state and the overall economy as a whole compared to the hunting and fishing crowd. But the Green crowd is more interested in the Ideology with the economical affects be damned. Adjusting the "economics" to fit the idea instead of the idea to fit the economics.
Shootmoore