Mohave, please explain why you believe wealthy hunters should be able to purchase tags every year while the majority of hunters across the country sit on the side-lines waiting to draw tags?
Jim,
Here is my 2 Tanzanian Schillingi!
I believe large landowners should be able to sell vouchers/tags/hunts on the lands that they own (but not lease from the state or federal government). As this incentivizes keeping large swaths of private land from being turned into track housing. Wildlife must pay it's own way, and this is a way for wildlife to do that. Compare Colorado or Arizona or New Mexico, Montana or Wyoming. Though the areas around Taos, Santa Fe, Jackson, Bozeman Missoula are getting destroyed by developments.
I do not believe that outfitters should have special draws, or an outfitter allocation of tags for public land hunts. This is in my mind a violation of the North American model of wildlife being held in a trust.
I do not like the idea that Wyoming and Alaska having species or zones that require a guide for non-residents. This is a states rights issue, even though it is on public land. Though it heavily panders to the outfitters, as a child my father was the undersheriff of Fremont County and spent most of his falls looking for lost non-resident hunts as the commander of the search and rescue group in the 1970's. I can see both sides, modern interventions like satellite communications really shuts down the argument.
Wealth buys things. Not sure if you are familiar with this or not. When I was a poor enlisted kid in the Navy, I was single and saved my money and went on a Namibian safari. A few years later married with kids I struggled to be able to afford our life, let alone something like a safari or even out of state tags. But I kicked my own ass and worked hard and fought my way up the rat race to make more money. So now I apply for more out of state tags, do a few private land hunt every couple years and travel overseas to hunt when Ican. Everything is kind of relative, I pay a hell of a lot more in taxes, work twice as much as I get paid for, and often do not own my calendar at work at all. Family vacations regularly get pushed to the way side for work.
Govenor's tags are one of those things that really pisses people off. The auction tags at the Western Hunting Expo are another. Because it allows people that have bigger bank accounts to go to the front of the line.
If you realize the conservation dollars that commissioners tags, raffle tags, Govenor's tags generate it becomes an easier pill to swallow.
If you then consider that thousands of acres are set aside by private land owners for wildlife (they don't live 100% of their life on those private lands), it acts as a sanctuary for wildlife. Try to think of it as conservation real estate and that is what it is. Yes it is bulls for billionaires, but it also preserves that real estate from being developed.
Wildlife pays it's own way by incentivizing big ticket conservation tags (Govenor's, commissioners, raffles etc) and private land hunting.
My own views are swayed by growing up in Wyoming and then spending half a lifetime of living overseas with the military and seeing what happens when wildlife doesn't pay its own way (Australia, Italy, Greece) versus where it is used as a way to fund conservation (The USA, Spain, Canada, Southern Africa, Germany).
This year I spent or will spend pretty close to $2000 on points programs and licenses. None of this will result in an actual tag in 2022. Take that $2000 and put it toward a private land hunt or a African safari and it makes a lot more sense. The $2000 I spent does not guarantee anything other than another $2000 or more in 2023 for the same crap in one hand and hope in the other mentality of Western Hunting.
Let me as you this? What would you rather have points or a hunt?
Would you rather see that 50,000 acre swath of land turned into concrete and 2500 square foot homes?
