Not defending Californias approach to game management, at all. But the reasons we can’t draw elk or (good) deer tags are political in nature. And the reasons our wild ungulate populations aren’t going to improve are political in nature. And the reasons we don’t have good waterfowl hunting are political in nature. And the reason we can’t catch abalone or salmon are political in nature. And the reason our gun laws are wacky are political in nature. And so forth. Really, it’s an urban vs rural values issue and the red v. blue issues that are at stake nationwide can be viewed through a California prism fairly easily. News flash, it isn’t a state full of commie transvestite surfers. It’s just that the urban parts of the state outnumber and outvote the remainder. Oregon and Washington are on similar
and accelerated paths. Most of the US is. Urbanization is winning this game right now regardless of the location. Free stuff given to urban people wins votes. People with money move to pretty places. I understand that this is not going to sit well with a lot of you but if we want to defend rural values, which include hunting, fishing, trapping, ranching, etc. then I’d suggest that there are some lessons to be learned from the red parts of California because they’ve been fighting that “war” for a long time now. Longer than most in this country to be sure.