ENGROSSED
Senate Bill No. 529
(By Senator Dittmar)
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[Introduced February 12, 1999; referred to the Committee on Natural Resources; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A Bill to amend and reenact section forty-four-b, article two, chapter twenty of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to increasing the fee for the bear damage stamp; and authorizing additional purposes for use of bear damage fund.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section forty-four-b, article two, chapter twenty of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:

ARTICLE 2. WILDLIFE RESOURCES.

§20-2-44b. Bear damage stamp; distribution of fees; purposes, etc.
Any hunter licensed to hunt bear in this state shall in addition to a hunting license of either Class A, or AB, in the case of a resident, or C, E, EE, L, LL or M, in the case of a nonresident, have a bear damage stamp which shall be issued by the ~~department~~ division of natural resources and which shall be sold at places where hunting and fishing licenses are sold. The fee for a bear damage stamp ~~shall be~~ is ~~four~~ tentwenty dollars and all proceeds from the sale of ~~such~~ the stamps shall be distributed as follows: thirty percent shall be ~~paid into~~ paid intocredited to the bear damage fund which shall be maintained by the ~~department~~ division of natural resources for the purposes of paying claims of property owners for damages to real and personal property caused by acts of bear ~~and to cover~~ , of covering the expense of hunting, capturing and removing offending bear to remote areas and seventy percent shall be credited to the division of natural resources law-enforcement section. conducting investigationbss into illegal bear hunting and other relevant violations of tlaw.