NR have been harvesting more MD in R7 than residents off and on for the better part of 2 decades. NR have harvested more bucks than residents in R7 12 out of the last 14 years. In 2004, 8215 NR hunted R7 for deer, in 2023, 8045 NR hunted R7 for deer. The average over that same time period is...
I would feel differently if R6 and R7 were broken up into an appropriate number of districts and we put caps on per district. This would more closely mimic what ID has done.
Also, consider that over 75% of our hunter days increase is from residents.....
Ok, I understand what you are saying.
I'm not sure we have any data to make a guess at what will happen from a landowner perspective. I know the landowners involved with the proposal expect it to make it better, but it's a guess. I think what I would say is the structure allows future...
Also, in looking for data on what we can expect pressure wise, I looked to ID harvest stats for hunter days (our surrogate for pressure). ID is the most similar to our current proposal, although they allow MD and WT on one tag, no pick your species. I looked at WY and other states, but the...
At some point this becomes a discussion of "perfection is the enemy of progress". Yes, there are better ways FWP could manage, obviously. But we need to consider things that actually have a chance in hell of being adopted while minimizing unintended consequences.
Sure. Part of why I say there would be unintended consequences is how I think FWP would manage regional caps. My best guess, is they would manage off the current hunter numbers and base the caps off percentage of deer in regions. So, if Region 6 and 7 have 35-40% of the states deer, they...
The problem with state transfer is a large amount of states are just going to surplus that land and sell it. There is a reason people (rich people) want state transfer, so they can get really expensive, resource rich land for cheap. It is infinitely easier to sell state land that federal land...
@Treeshark and whoever else. Attached is the economic output of one land management agency (BLM). Note, in "Direct Economic Output" the amount (this is directly tied to BLM activities, oil/gas leases, timber sales, etc etc) BLM Budget is around $2 Billion I believe. I'm not understanding...
I won't go as far as "ever again". I think doe harvest is fine, under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, FWP doesn't have a reputation for being tactical in harvest.
On a side note, the 2024 MD population estimates are out. R6 down 25% from last year, R7 holding steading at -37% from LTA.
I think a better representation is the annual report FWP has to do now on license sales. That tells the true story.
And NR are not limited to 10% outside of draw tags. In the case of draws for B tags, if there are not enough resident applications to fill the tag quota, the remainder can go to...
I would have to dig into the numbers, but my guess is "total hunters" is base hunting licenses (tho we didn't have base hunting licenses in 2012, so maybe some other method). The deer and elk is tags, so there could be duplicity (or multiplicity) there.