The resident short game. Long term consequences?

[displacedtexan]

I have seen our hunting areas drastically affected by non resident hunting over the past decade, to the degree that my family as residents have had to completely change our game. Poor predator management, a few bad winters, drought, and the excessive amount of non resident hunters over the past six or seven years, our deer and elk herds are severely depleted, now we have to deal with the population growith and shift as well.

How does residents getting more tags result in less herd deletion?

Less tags is the answer there, not changing who gets them.

If anything I'd expect a lower success rate from non residents who don't know the area.

 

[CorbLand]

I will say it until I'm blue in the face. You did not loose your oppertunity to hunt moose, sheep, and goats via 90/10. You lost your oppertunity when demand out stripped supply to such a wild margin it has taken a task force to try and get a broken system somewhat functioning. If you want to believe you had an oppertunity I will gladly help you run the numbers on your specific gripe.

There is a lot of truth in this guys. In the State of Utah, NR lose about 200 tags each year between the hunt expo tags and CWMU tags. Deer tags have been cut by 2/3 in 45 years. The percentage splits is not the only thing taking your opportunity.

 

[tdhanses]

I would love to see that too, just for a year. Let's just open the flood gates and see how trashed we can get the ground and how many elk we can push into the next county. Why not. Why not run it right into the ground so we can all say we went.

Obviously it isn’t feasible and not sound management as you would get 200k hunters that go to CO and WY. Thing is only 20k would actually hunt any distance from a road.

 

[CorbLand]

Obviously it isn’t feasible and not sound management as you would get 200k hunters that go to CO and WY. Thing is only 20k would actually hunt any distance from a road.

There was actually an interesting thing brought at the wildlife board work session in Utah last week. There is a general season deer unit that once gave out 8000 tags and 700 or 900 deer were killed each year. I cant remember which number it was. They have cut the tags down to 4000 and there are still the same number of deer killed.

It wasn't really a study, just an observation but I hope someone runs with it and looks into it. I have wondered for years how much cutting tags has really work to increase herds. It seems to be the answer every year and we keep doing it. Seems to me that if you keep having to do it, its not working. I would be really interested to see if issuing more tags really is as detrimental to the herds as we make it out to be.

A unit in N. Utah is over objective by a thousand elk and Utah cut tags on that unit this year. When asked about it, the biologist said that they are cutting tags because success rates have dropped. So we have to many elk and we have to cut tags to increase success rates?

 

[realunlucky]

There was actually an interesting thing brought at the wildlife board work session in Utah last week. There is a general season deer unit that once gave out 8000 tags and 700 or 900 deer were killed each year. I cant remember which number it was. They have cut the tags down to 4000 and there are still the same number of deer killed.

It wasn't really a study, just an observation but I hope someone runs with it and looks into it. I have wondered for years how much cutting tags has really work to increase herds. It seems to be the answer every year and we keep doing it. Seems to me that if you keep having to do it, its not working. I would be really interested to see if issuing more tags really is as detrimental to the herds as we make it out to be.

A unit in N. Utah is over objective by a thousand elk and Utah cut tags on that unit this year. When asked about it, the biologist said that they are cutting tags because success rates have dropped. So we have to many elk and we have to cut tags to increase success rates?

Utah is managing elk by bull age class essentially trying to manage an entire state by trophy potential. Not sure what that practice has to with the points being made here

Everyone on Rokslide understands as resources shrink so does opportunity. No heart ache for common sense approaches.

 

[CorbLand]

Utah is managing elk by bull age class essentially trying to manage an entire state by trophy potential. Not sure what that practice has to with the points being made here

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

They cut cow tags, not bull.

The point I was making is that everyone acts like the splits is what is stealing their opportunity when the idea of cutting tags to increase success rates is a major contributor to opportunity being lost.

You can increase both resident and nonresident opportunity by accepting lower success rates and issuing more tags.

Overall, my point is I would interested to see if someone has done a study to see if at some point, cutting tags has a diminishing rate of return and to what level it doesn't make sense anymore. It would be interesting to see if increasing tags allocations also has a diminishing rate of return and to what level it doesn't make sense to raise them anymore.

My second point with the elk, is here we have an example of a time where we have a surplus and yet, we are still taking away opportunity and yet nobody is talking about it. We are all hung up on the split.

 

[Customweld]

Any person can enjoy our public lands at any time. Hiking, biking, quads ,snowmobiles, almost anything your heart desires, year round. What tag allocation number do you feel your entitled to?
If you are going to stop donating or participating in conservation organizations because you don't feel like you are getting enough out of it, where is your heart then? It doesn't sound like it's with the animals and their habitat.

 

[QuackAttack]

The truly terrible moment will be when those R hunters experience the whole outdoor and shooting community discovering that all those non hunters who shoot and recreate in hunting spaces…are paying a specific tax so hunters can hunt.

Do you think that people who don’t hunt…but want year round access to land…are going to be peaceful and tolerant of men with guns on public land that they want to recreate on? Nope…


Why should shooters pay a hunting tax on a non hunting firearm? Why pay PR taxes on a case of 9mm ball that you are taking to a pistol class? Justify Wyoming resident elk tags benefiting from a guy who just wants to take his Glock 19 to a carry class. You can’t…and when that knowledge spreads in the shooting community, there will be huge changes to how PR taxes are collected, who receives them, and who gets access to hunting spaces.

Non hunters have just as much right as hunters, to the places we hunt.

Shooters, more than hunters, pay PR taxes and fund hunters.


Money and votes are power…and hunters have neither. The outdoor recreation space dwarfs hunting. Backpacking, camping, RVs, and so on…massively outnumber hunters and have huge appeal to Susie soccer mom. Hunters have none…hunters lose.


This is a fight that hunters can not win…the R hunters should be bend over backwards to accommodate and keep the peace. When that war comes, it will be those hunters who end up destroyed by new laws and restrictions.

but…man is inherently selfish, greedy, short sighted, and blind to the “ it won’t happen to me” bias.

 

[Clarkdale17]

I try to stay out of these threads as they always seem to turn into a pissing match but with the amount of these threads popping up I figure I'll toss my two cents in.

I find it somewhat comical and depressing at the same time that the generation that has had a lifetime of good draw odds and tag opportunity seem to be the ones bitching the most. Sure it sucks for you guys. Certainly sucks more for us that have a lifetime of trying to draw tags. Seems as if no one stops to think about the repercussions down the road and instead just thinks of themselves in the now. As with many of the issues in this country the common solution seems to be to hand a big bag of shit to the next generation and let them deal with it instead of facing the issues.

I've grown up realizing hunting will likely disappear in my lifetime but always thought it'd be around the time I grew too old to do it anymore. At this rate I'll be happy if I'm able to hunt with my kids if I have any before hunting is no longer a viable option. With the amount of obstacles in the way (tag allocation, loss of public lands, cost of leases, liberals, etc) it's starting to look a lot like sooner rather than later. If all the older folks are wondering why we aren't getting younger hunters and retaining them they need to take a hard look at themselves.

Once we get to a point where the hoops you have to jump through are too great to bother with I see a lot of folks hanging it up. When that happens the liberals will be able to get what they want and us hunters will all be miserable. After that all the precious trails and parks that liberals enjoy using without paying for will turn to shit and then we all get to be miserable together I guess.

Seems to be the common goal is for everyone to just be miserable.

 

[Justin Crossley]

Summation of the OP: I want more access to resources that I am not willing to support financially.

That's not how I took the original post. I think you are missing the point.

 

[Netherman]

Hard to argue that we are losing advocates as these rule changes continue to favor residents and outfitters. As opportunities continue to erode for users so will their advocacy.

An example:
If there were talks of changing WY wilderness to national forest I'd be all for it. If that same discussion were to come up in any other state I'd be firmly against it.

For the "there are more uses for wilderness than hunting" crowd:
I agree, but like many others on this forum I have limited vacation and dedicate the majority of it to hunting. Personally, I have four weeks of vacation and try to use two of them hunting out west every year. I might end up going on a hike and sightseeing tour, but I don't visit public lands in the west without a tag in my pocket. That will likely change as I get more time off / retire.

I don't have a problem with 90/10. Particularly if a resident isn't guaranteed a tag every year. The rules that really chap my ass are the guide requirements and exclusion zones (particularly when those areas are owned federally).

 

[MattB]

That's not how I took the original post. I think you are missing the point.

Could be. Was the point that, in the face of diminishing wildlife habitat, the best course of action is to stop funding non-profit wildlife organizations which exist in part to protect and enhance wildlife habitat? That was another theme I picked up on.

 

[tdhanses]

Could be. Was the point that, in the face of diminishing wildlife habitat, the best course of action is to stop funding non-profit wildlife organizations which exist in part to protect and enhance wildlife habitat? That was another theme I picked up on.

To me it’s the more you disenfranchise the NR and the less that continue to hunt the less likely the 1% of residents in the west will retain the overall right or pick up the lost funding. In reality wildlife can be managed without hunting as we see by declining populations and additional predation. These orgs that receive funding from many will lose favor to many as their hobbies shift, maybe they’ll move their donations to orgs that press for more utv trails on public as their new activity for annual vacations.

Who knows what the future holds but the long-term outlook as we see more and more groups disenfranchised doesn’t look great. So yes as more and more people stop hunting fewer and fewer will support the right as they won’t care, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about wildlife just means with no interest why step up for it.

 

[MuleyFever]

Could be. Was the point that, in the face of diminishing wildlife habitat, the best course of action is to stop funding non-profit wildlife organizations which exist in part to protect and enhance wildlife habitat? That was another theme I picked up on.

0 for 2

 

[QuackAttack]

To me it’s the more you disenfranchise the NR and the less that continue to hunt the less likely the 1% of residents in the west will retain the overall right or pick up the lost funding. In reality wildlife can be managed without hunting as we see by declining populations and additional predation. These orgs that receive funding from many will lose favor to many as their hobbies shift, maybe they’ll move their donations to orgs that press for more utv trails on public as their new activity for annual vacations.

Who knows what the future holds but the long-term outlook as we see more and more groups disenfranchised doesn’t look great. So yes as more and more people stop hunting fewer and fewer will support the right as they won’t care, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about wildlife just means with no interest why step up for it.

This accurately describes waterfowl hunting in Arkansas. It went from the duck hunting capital of the world to a place where grown men punch 16 year old kids in the face because a kid beat them to one of the few open spots on public land…or boat ramps where locals vandalize cars with out of state plates and joke about it on Facebook. Club memberships are insane…was quoted 750k for a 1/10 membership in a flooded timber club with 600 acres….

Every year, more guys give up. Fewer ducks…more fights…less habitat…and the solution was for Game and Fish to ban non residents.

Not surprisingly…nothing changed and the same Aholes still fight in the woods…now they cut your tires because you are from the wrong county…and fewer hunters. Hotels closed, restaurants closed, jobs gone…and on and on.

sad deal, but predictable. Humans…

 

[Lawnboi]

Come on guys it’s about the wildlife! We are supposed to just throw money at it even if we are completely disconnected with said resource.

Here you go, just cause you don’t get to shoot it dosnt mean it’s not important?

Grizzly Bear Foundation

Grizzly Bear Foundation is a registered Canadian charitable organization dedicated solely to the welfare of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). Guided by science and Indigenous knowledge, we work collaboratively to support the conservation of grizzly bears through research, public education, and advocacy.

grizzlybearfoundation.com

I promise this is my only smart ass response for the day

 

[MattB]

0 for 2

Is 0 the setting on your sarcasm-meter?

 

[RMM]

Come on guys it’s about the wildlife! We are supposed to just throw money at it even if we are completely disconnected with said resource.

Here you go, just cause you don’t get to shoot it dosnt mean it’s not important?

Grizzly Bear Foundation

Grizzly Bear Foundation is a registered Canadian charitable organization dedicated solely to the welfare of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). Guided by science and Indigenous knowledge, we work collaboratively to support the conservation of grizzly bears through research, public education, and advocacy.

grizzlybearfoundation.com

I promise this is my only smart ass response for the day

I think its cute they didn't use the entire scientific name because it doesn't make them sound cuddly

 

[MattB]

To me it’s the more you disenfranchise the NR and the less that continue to hunt the less likely the 1% of residents in the west will retain the overall right or pick up the lost funding. In reality wildlife can be managed without hunting as we see by declining populations and additional predation. These orgs that receive funding from many will lose favor to many as their hobbies shift, maybe they’ll move their donations to orgs that press for more utv trails on public as their new activity for annual vacations.

Who knows what the future holds but the long-term outlook as we see more and more groups disenfranchised doesn’t look great. So yes as more and more people stop hunting fewer and fewer will support the right as they won’t care, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about wildlife just means with no interest why step up for it.

States certainly benefit from NR dollars, some way more than others, but I don't think that this disenfranchisement will have a significant impact in DFG/DNR funding over time. States have levers they can manipulate to balance funding in terms of increasing R/NR license/tag fees, petitioning for general fund dollars, or even increasing NR opportunity if all else fails. Not rocket science.

I would disagree that wildlife can be managed without hunting. While there may be areas in the west where that is the case, that is the exception and not the norm. If predators were to increase to a level that replaced recreational hunting, there would be downstream impacts that would not be tenable (e.g. livestock losses, human/pet attacks) which would have economic and political implications. Add to that demand for tags, especially in the west, has never been higher.

What does have potential to improve the situation is higher game numbers. While that is challenging in many areas due to federal oversight on predator management and environmental factors, what can be done is to protect and improve habitat and augment populations through translocation. It obviously rubbed me the wrong way that the OP's first action was to eliminate his funding of groups who can make these sorts of projects happen. IMO it is short-sighted and frankly I don't think much of people who only contribute to causes if they see direct, tangible personal benefits that will result. Here in CA we have been adding water sources on military bases that will very likely never be hunted to benefit desert bighorn sheep. Why? Because it is the right thing to do for the resource, regardless of whether that improves one's ability to draw a desert sheep tag in their lifetime. But over decades it just might.

The whole post struck me like crying over yet-to-be spilled milk.

 

[Billy Goat]

This accurately describes waterfowl hunting in Arkansas. It went from the duck hunting capital of the world to a place where grown men punch 16 year old kids in the face because a kid beat them to one of the few open spots on public land…or boat ramps where locals vandalize cars with out of state plates and joke about it on Facebook. Club memberships are insane…was quoted 750k for a 1/10 membership in a flooded timber club with 600 acres….

Every year, more guys give up. Fewer ducks…more fights…less habitat…and the solution was for Game and Fish to ban non residents.

Not surprisingly…nothing changed and the same Aholes still fight in the woods…now they cut your tires because you are from the wrong county…and fewer hunters. Hotels closed, restaurants closed, jobs gone…and on and on.

sad deal, but predictable. Humans…

Then there's Reelfoot.


Where people are literally getting shot.