CO - Tag Allocation R v. NR - CORA Data

[Deleted member 28227]

As many of you know Colorado is reviewing it's 5 Year Big Game Season Structure. The CPAW commissioners have decided to not discuss allocation as part of this process, but I know it is an important discussion for many Colorado resident and nonresident elk hunters.
Under current Colorado rules in for elk and deer hunt codes that require six or more points to draw NR are capped at 20% of the tags in all goes they may draw up to 35%; OTC tags are not capped. CPAW has chosen not to publish license sales statistics for OTC license and therefore disclose the true percentage of CO elk licenses going to nonresidents. I filed a CORA request with CPAW for this data for 2010-2018, below is a summary. Also in order to facilitate discussions I researched the allocations, herd size, percent of elk herd harvested each year, license cost, and whether or not the state require reporting for every state in the U.S. that allows NR to hunt elk. My intent is not to shame CPAW, or make a statement about allocation, but to provide information for future discussions. Since we can now edit our posts, if I'm alerted to errors in these tables I will happily fix them. I tried to obtain everything from official sources, i.e. the state itself rather than hunting websites. Also I had to do some fudging in order to get apples to apples comparisons, e.g. for license cost I tried to determine the cost to legally hunt elk, base license + elk tag, permit, etc. if applicable. Also some states have outfitter tags, in those cases I allocated all outfitter tags to NR, so the NR tags represent the high possible amount of NR hunting in the state.






Look backs: Big Game Brochures

2010	http://coloradomtnproperty.net/files/40629949.pdf
2011	https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/r...ildlife-big-game-brochure-rainbow-lake-lodge-
2012	https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/11769584/2012-co-big-game-hunting-regulations-draw-odds
2013	https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/37507358/2013-big-game-hunting-regulation-brochure-draw-odds
2014	https://www.craig-chamber.com/documents/2014BigGameBrochure.pdf
2015	https://www.monstermuleys.com/huntodds/colorado/2015_colorado_big_game_regs.pdf
2016	https://www.craig-chamber.com/documents/2016biggamebrochure.pdf
2017	http://www.eregulations.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/biggame.pdf
2018	http://www.eregulations.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/COBG.pdf
2019	https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/RulesRegs/Brochure/BigGame/biggame.pdf

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Part of the Allocation discussion is funding the department, CPAW has looked into other funding sources besides hunting licenses. The problems with these sources are complex and nuanced.

https://docs.merid.org/SITECORE_DOCS/Colorado Parks and Wildlife Future Funding Study Dec2018.pdf

 

[Oak]

There’s a lot to digest there. One slight error that jumped out was in your last table, Colorado high PP units are 80/20 split, R/NR.

 

[rideold]

Some good data there. Thanks for putting your time into this.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

There’s a lot to digest there. One slight error that jumped out was in your last table, Colorado high PP units are 80/20 split, R/NR.

Updated.

Yeah the biggest things that jumped out at me were the 44% of OTC archery tags going to NR, and just the sheer volume of CO tags. I mean I think even with the data holes you can say that 30-50% of all nonresident elk hunters in the country are hunting Colorado.

 

[elkduds]

Willm1313, that is an outstanding effort. Kudos, hats off, three cheers

Now we can add statistical significance to IME and Wild-Ass Guessing. Popcorn, anyone?

 

[rmyoung1]

So, if I’m reading your data correctly, nonresidents account for roughly 85% of elk license revenue every year in Colorado? Holy smokes! Never would’ve guessed it to be that high.

 

[grasshopper]

I don't have alot of time today, but a true measure is headcount, not license sales. B list cow tags are second tags. True allocation is headcount. Archery is 52 res 48 nr in Otc. Limited should be sorta close to 65/35. There is no point in including b list cow tags whatsoever

 

[TOGIE]

So, if I’m reading your data correctly, nonresidents account for roughly 85% of elk license revenue every year in Colorado? Holy smokes! Never would’ve guessed it to be that high.

I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if it was a tad higher.

I've generally viewed CPWs strategy as more of cash flow model more than anything else when it comes to elk.

 

[rmyoung1]

Crud... add $100 to the nonresident elk license cost. Then residents can have their tags for free. Once the resident revenues have been completely eliminated, we nonresidents boycott CO for one year, and then hire our outfitter industry lobbyist-mercenaries to broker a 50/50 limited license allocation going forward.

I’m kidding....

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I don't have alot of time today, but a true measure is headcount, not license sales. B list cow tags are second tags. True allocation is headcount. Archery is 52 res 48 nr in Otc. Limited should be sorta close to 65/35. There is no point in including b list cow tags whatsoever

but a true measure is headcount: - I'm not entirely sure what you mean. People who actually hunted, i.e. individual hunters, because someone could have an A and a B tag? Colorado doesn't do mandatory reporting so this information does not exist. Sold licenses is a pretty accurate way of assessing hunters, and I was consistent across states so it's apples to apples.

B list cow tags are second tags: But there are A list cow tags, and CPAW reports them all the same way so you can't bucket them out.

There is no point in including b list cow tags whatsoever: Both agree and disagree, in some ways they are more relevant as that's what effects herd growth, some states don't report them as separate. Because I kinda agree I broke them out for everyone and in the revenue table I used the NR antlerless price to get the value, the reason there is a null for 2018 is because in the new reporting system CPAW combines cow and bull tags, I've put in a request for these to be broken out.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Quick little allocation exercise for those saying CO should have a cap like MT or WY...







* Slightly misleading because you can buy a resident OTC elk license without a small game license but a resident has to buy a small game or turkey license to participate in the draw. Most residents would be paying $140.95 which would be above the western average.

 

[grasshopper]

For archery, all cow tags are b list. A tags are either sex. In license sales cpw suggests we have 48 to 50000 hunters. The true number is 35000 Otc, and 6525 limited. True headcount is 41525 not 50000.

If you want to have an allocation discussion, it needs to be about A tags, and people, especially when talking limitations. DEMAND matters, the whole issue is fairness.

B list tags create a large margin of error, especially for archery.

 

[icebreaker12]

To update your state table. Wyoming issues 16% of its limited quota elk tags to NR and 7250 general tags to NR.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

To update your state table. Wyoming issues 16% of its limited quota elk tags to NR and 7250 general tags to NR.

But no antlerless cap correct? I had to throw them all together because all the states do it so differently.

 

[jlmatthew]

Quick little allocation exercise for those saying CO should have a cap like MT or WY...

Tell us about their season length, and can they hunt both archery and rifle on the same tag

 

[icebreaker12]

But no antlerless cap correct? I had to throw them all together because all the states do it so differently.

There is an antlerless cap, but the 16% is only relevant in the first draw.

 

[grasshopper]

This data is from Andy Holland, CPW Big Game Manager. It compares OTC archery to OTC rifle. It is not from a CORA request, I asked, he got the data and gave it to me.

If you look at limited licenses, we already have an allocation policy of 65/35, and 80/20.

What really need to be done, is have reports tied to unique CID numbers. If not, your double counting B list cow data as hunters.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Tell us about their season length, and can they hunt both archery and rifle on the same tag

I believe achieving that would require setting quotas for units in a manner which keeps herds healthy, and harvest rates consistent. Anecdotally it seems like Wyoming has better calf recruitment which allows for them to have a greater %herd harvested annually. I think to have similar seasons in CO you would have to dramatically cut tags.

My WAG would be over 30,000 tags, of which you would need to target higher success rate tags rather than lower success rate tags. So a decent amount of that 30,000 would need to come from Limited resident tags rather than lower success rate NR OTC tags.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

To update your state table. Wyoming issues 16% of its limited quota elk tags to NR and 7250 general tags to NR.

No they do not. They issue 7250 full priced LQ and gen tags combined. This does not include the reduced price cow/calf tags,type 6 tags. Those are issued at 16% in the first draw. Then any remaining red price and full price LQ tags are issued in the leftover drawing open to both res and nr hunters. This is how they get to around 13,000 total NR elk tags in a year.