Abstract The editor of Wildlife Society Bulletin asked me to respond to the Gates et al. (2006) article on The Wildlife Society's (TWS) economic growth policy statement. This was done with the concurrence of the authors of that article. I prepared a draft of this response, then ran it by Council, along with the Gates manuscript, the original proposed policy statement, and the policy statement approved by Council. In our reading of the Gates manuscript, the issues raised by the authors seem to be twofold: 1) the process by which this policy statement was adopted, and, 2) the content of the adopted policy, which varies significantly from that proposed by the TWS Working Group on Local Governance. I will address both issues.