Utah does it to get hunters to buy a license so they can get a share of the federal tax money while selling off the any bull tags to the highest bidder. Win win
As a Utah resident, you should know that "any bull" is a specific type of tag, and is OTC. Are you talking of the private landowners in the OTC any bull areas? Because the state gets no cut of that. Or are you talking about the extreme-lack-of-transparency expo tags that are Limited Entry tags? I don't think either have much of any bearing on spike-only hunts.
I still don't get why there isn't (or maybe there is?) more outrage over these tags. Every spike killed is one less mature bull down the road which would increase the number of bulls available to the draw pool which could increase the number of tags which could decrease the wait for a tag from say 25 years to 24 or so (in theory)!
so this is just another aspect of the system that makes it more difficult on the public land peasant class.
Argh. Within Utah, there is enough pressure from in-state horn-porn addicts that we don’t need more from other sources to squeeze out the “peasant class”. I think there are some major misperceptions underlying your assumptions. The outrage from “peasants” is addicts wanting to shorten their waiting period by one, two, or three years – at any cost! All in the name of hunting lots of lightly pressured mature bulls during the peak of the rut! That cost is very high to “peasants” like me!! That could cut me out from any piece of the action on the majority of the hunting units.
First of all, there is no shortage of mature bulls on the Utah Limited Entry units that allow OTC spike hunting. I could have harvested a handful of mature 6x6 bulls last year while searching for the more elusive spike (more elusive as it’s one age class, whereas there are numerous age classes of mature bulls, and they’ve been kicked out of the herds). There is no shortage!
Let’s think through the biology of not harvesting any spikes. Allowing all spikes to grow up will push the bull:cow ratio towards 50:50. It won’t reach that, as the top end of the bulls is being harvested off, but it will tend to go far closer to 50:50 than it is now. The land (esp the winter range, plus cattle, sheep, etc) is the primary limiting factor on the number of elk. In general, for every 1 bull increase, there needs to be a corresponding decrease of 1 cow to not surpass the carrying capacity. A large scale increase in bulls will necessitate a reduction in cows. This will likely do two things: 1) eliminate cow hunts (can one really argue there is a surplus with reduced numbers of cows, AND reduced calf production?), and 2) eliminate spike hunts as well, since the annual output of calves is significantly reduced. So, for the addict’s gain of a couple years shorter wait, the peasant has no share of any hunt in that particular unit. See where the outrage from peasants is? By creating these LE units, the average peasant’s opportunities have already been cut. To make these units even more elitist than they already are may snuff out any participation at all.
If you are a meat hunter, and want yearly opportunities to get meat, come join me on Oct 1. Grab an OTC spike tag, and a flight, and I’ll pick you up at the SLC airport on my way south (but it better be an early arrival on Oct 1! I’m not waiting around for some afternoon flight arrival!) I’ll show you how these units have lots of mature bulls to pick from (even after the LE hunt), and how it still provides opportunities for peasants like myself to get a spike and/or cow. No promises you won’t have to go for night-time hikes to listen to all the bugling and locate a herd to find come first light, as my wife is likely to join me for some or all of the hunt.
