I recieved this e-mail and thought I would share it and get your thoughts.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Jim Hagedorn
United Sportsmen Alliance of Idaho: www.USA4ID.com
Need a good used tractor? www.ABtractors.com
-----Original Message-----
From: George Dovel
Hi Marv:
The enclosed 10-2 and 10-3-03 Idaho Statesman articles are a follow-up to one of the stories I forwarded yesterday. Both IDFG and the Commissioners are crying the blues because nonresidents failed to buy half of their quota of 10,900 deer tags, and because the scheme to sell them to gullible residents for the nonresident price of $235 each isn't working.
In the Statesman article published yesterday, IDFG SW Region Wildlife Manager Jon Rachael said, "All our counts suggest we've got tons of critters...I have no reason to believe we won't have a great crop of deer and elk out there." For those who don't remember, Rachael is the former IDFG wolf biologist who provided highly exaggerated deer and elk population estimates to the public and the U.S. Congress in order to justify USFWS claims of minimal impact from introducing Canadian wolves into Idaho.
He also joined former Wildlife Bureau Chief Lonn Kuck in producing a bogus study claiming that the flawed telephone harvest survey was accurate. When the Commissioners chose to waste over a million license dollars comparing the worthless phone survey with the highly accurate mandatory hunter harvest report we now have, Rachael continued to provide them with false information concerning both the relative accuracy and cost.
During the 1992-93 winter, the highest recorded snowfall in the past 50 years coupled with IDFG refusal to feed caused the starvation loss of half of southern Idaho's mule deer population. Then as now, IDFG excused the subsequent harvest declines by blaming the weather for hunters' failure to find more deer (see 10-2-03 Statesman article "A mixed year for deer and elk").
After listening to the "weather" excuse for several hunting seasons, disgusted nonresident deer hunters passed the word around that Idaho's mule deer herd was killed off and stopped buying tags. But instead of significantly reducing hunting opportunity and halting all antlerless deer harvest until the mule deer herds could rebuild, I&E Chief (now Fisheries Chief) Virgil Moore gave the Commissioners a class in selling more deer tags to nonresidents by liberalizing seasons, shooting even more breeding age females and replacement fawns, and advertising in out-of-state newspapers and sportsman shows.
By the winter of 2001-2002, mule deer numbers were slowly improving but were far short of full recovery when the second highest recorded snowfall in 50 years occurred in most of southern Idaho. Deer and elk began dying from starvation in early December 2001 but IDFG and SW Region Commissioner Don Clower refused to follow the criteria to initiate emergency feeding.
When sportsmen and legislators finally forced them to feed, SW Region officials announced their decision to feed at only one third of the sites and let hundreds of deer and elk starve to death. Local citizens on the South Fork of the Payette winter range documented the mass starvation by photographing several hundred dead deer and elk and removing the right front distal leg bone to prove that advanced malnutrition was the cause of death (disk containing photo evidence forwarded by mail).
Rachael and other F&G officials, including the director and two commissioners, published the false claim that fewer than 10 percent of the deer and elk died that winter. The citizen winter feeding advisory committee, which has become nothing but a rubber stamp for IDFG mismanagement, lent credibility to that false claim. The lone member who disagreed has since been replaced by another IDFG hand picked mouthpiece.
Wildlife Bureau Chief Jim Unsworth joined Rachael in ignoring their ongoing mule deer research which shows unacceptable fawn survival throughout southern Idaho following the 2001-2002 winter, and blamed the reduced deer harvest on (guess what) "dry weather". Unsworth's claim that the quality of big game hunting in Idaho is near the long term average (see "F&G plan to market hunting in Idaho") is proof of the adage, "Figures don't lie but liars do figure".
In yet another Statesman "news" story on 10-2-03 titled, "Elk and deer statistics for 2002," Rachael and Unsworth used several years of record low deer harvests following the 1992-93 die-off to calculate a "long term average" that is not much higher than the reduced 2002 harvest. They fail to admit that the 2002 Idaho deer harvest was less than half of the 1992 harvest and is reflecting a steady decline.
Commissioner John Burns was the lone voice of truth and reason during the Commission discussion when he said that the focus needs to be on improving Idaho's game herds instead of launching a marketing campaign proving all you want to do is sell tags. Unlike his counterparts in SW Idaho and the Magic Valley, SE Regional Wildlife Manager Carl Anderson readily admitted that the harsh 2001-2003 winter killed nearly half of the deer population.
Idaho's radically declining mule deer population and harvests are being ignored by both the agency and the commission who are charged by Idaho Code Sec. 36-103 with protecting and perpetuating this valuable species. Historically mule deer have provided more total income, more family recreation and more delicious wild meat to Idahoans than all other Idaho game species.
Mainstream Idaho sportsmen and women who value their mule deer hunting heritage must urge their elected officials to halt this excessive harvest and restore healthy mule deer populations. The Idaho Fish and Game Commission must not be allowed to continue to exploit this valuable resource while setting its own fees to benefit the bureaucracy.
I urge you to distribute this letter to your readers.
Sincerely,
George Dovel, Editor
THE OUTDOORSMAN
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 11-03-2003 21:53: Message edited by: michaelr ]</font>
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Jim Hagedorn
United Sportsmen Alliance of Idaho: www.USA4ID.com
Need a good used tractor? www.ABtractors.com
-----Original Message-----
From: George Dovel
Hi Marv:
The enclosed 10-2 and 10-3-03 Idaho Statesman articles are a follow-up to one of the stories I forwarded yesterday. Both IDFG and the Commissioners are crying the blues because nonresidents failed to buy half of their quota of 10,900 deer tags, and because the scheme to sell them to gullible residents for the nonresident price of $235 each isn't working.
In the Statesman article published yesterday, IDFG SW Region Wildlife Manager Jon Rachael said, "All our counts suggest we've got tons of critters...I have no reason to believe we won't have a great crop of deer and elk out there." For those who don't remember, Rachael is the former IDFG wolf biologist who provided highly exaggerated deer and elk population estimates to the public and the U.S. Congress in order to justify USFWS claims of minimal impact from introducing Canadian wolves into Idaho.
He also joined former Wildlife Bureau Chief Lonn Kuck in producing a bogus study claiming that the flawed telephone harvest survey was accurate. When the Commissioners chose to waste over a million license dollars comparing the worthless phone survey with the highly accurate mandatory hunter harvest report we now have, Rachael continued to provide them with false information concerning both the relative accuracy and cost.
During the 1992-93 winter, the highest recorded snowfall in the past 50 years coupled with IDFG refusal to feed caused the starvation loss of half of southern Idaho's mule deer population. Then as now, IDFG excused the subsequent harvest declines by blaming the weather for hunters' failure to find more deer (see 10-2-03 Statesman article "A mixed year for deer and elk").
After listening to the "weather" excuse for several hunting seasons, disgusted nonresident deer hunters passed the word around that Idaho's mule deer herd was killed off and stopped buying tags. But instead of significantly reducing hunting opportunity and halting all antlerless deer harvest until the mule deer herds could rebuild, I&E Chief (now Fisheries Chief) Virgil Moore gave the Commissioners a class in selling more deer tags to nonresidents by liberalizing seasons, shooting even more breeding age females and replacement fawns, and advertising in out-of-state newspapers and sportsman shows.
By the winter of 2001-2002, mule deer numbers were slowly improving but were far short of full recovery when the second highest recorded snowfall in 50 years occurred in most of southern Idaho. Deer and elk began dying from starvation in early December 2001 but IDFG and SW Region Commissioner Don Clower refused to follow the criteria to initiate emergency feeding.
When sportsmen and legislators finally forced them to feed, SW Region officials announced their decision to feed at only one third of the sites and let hundreds of deer and elk starve to death. Local citizens on the South Fork of the Payette winter range documented the mass starvation by photographing several hundred dead deer and elk and removing the right front distal leg bone to prove that advanced malnutrition was the cause of death (disk containing photo evidence forwarded by mail).
Rachael and other F&G officials, including the director and two commissioners, published the false claim that fewer than 10 percent of the deer and elk died that winter. The citizen winter feeding advisory committee, which has become nothing but a rubber stamp for IDFG mismanagement, lent credibility to that false claim. The lone member who disagreed has since been replaced by another IDFG hand picked mouthpiece.
Wildlife Bureau Chief Jim Unsworth joined Rachael in ignoring their ongoing mule deer research which shows unacceptable fawn survival throughout southern Idaho following the 2001-2002 winter, and blamed the reduced deer harvest on (guess what) "dry weather". Unsworth's claim that the quality of big game hunting in Idaho is near the long term average (see "F&G plan to market hunting in Idaho") is proof of the adage, "Figures don't lie but liars do figure".
In yet another Statesman "news" story on 10-2-03 titled, "Elk and deer statistics for 2002," Rachael and Unsworth used several years of record low deer harvests following the 1992-93 die-off to calculate a "long term average" that is not much higher than the reduced 2002 harvest. They fail to admit that the 2002 Idaho deer harvest was less than half of the 1992 harvest and is reflecting a steady decline.
Commissioner John Burns was the lone voice of truth and reason during the Commission discussion when he said that the focus needs to be on improving Idaho's game herds instead of launching a marketing campaign proving all you want to do is sell tags. Unlike his counterparts in SW Idaho and the Magic Valley, SE Regional Wildlife Manager Carl Anderson readily admitted that the harsh 2001-2003 winter killed nearly half of the deer population.
Idaho's radically declining mule deer population and harvests are being ignored by both the agency and the commission who are charged by Idaho Code Sec. 36-103 with protecting and perpetuating this valuable species. Historically mule deer have provided more total income, more family recreation and more delicious wild meat to Idahoans than all other Idaho game species.
Mainstream Idaho sportsmen and women who value their mule deer hunting heritage must urge their elected officials to halt this excessive harvest and restore healthy mule deer populations. The Idaho Fish and Game Commission must not be allowed to continue to exploit this valuable resource while setting its own fees to benefit the bureaucracy.
I urge you to distribute this letter to your readers.
Sincerely,
George Dovel, Editor
THE OUTDOORSMAN
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 11-03-2003 21:53: Message edited by: michaelr ]</font>
