Subject to available funding, the department shall acquire sufficient wildlife habitat through lease or purchase or otherwise to establish wildlife management areas for the protection, propagation, and promotion of fish and wildlife and for public hunting and fishing. The department may not have under lease at any one time more than one million, six hundred thousand acres in the wildlife management area program. The department may not pay more than fair market value for the lease of lands in the area. The department may not lease land for the program which, during the preceding twenty-four months, was held under a private hunting lease. However, this restriction does not apply:

1. (1) if the former lessee executes a voluntary consent to the proposed wildlife management area lease;
2. (2) if the lessor cancels the lease; or
3. (3) to any lands which, during the twenty-four months before June 5, 1986, were in the game management area program. The department may establish open and closed seasons, bag limits, and methods for hunting and taking wildlife on all wildlife management areas.