Montana Elk and Deer- By the Numbers

[Bambistew]

How many actual hunters are there? The license sales chart does not really tell you anything conclusive. The highlighted "smoking gun" number of 86k NR hunters with a "base hunting license" does not equal the total number of NR hunters in the field. If you add up all NR the licenses sold its only 76k to include bird stamps. Did 10k just buy a license and not hunt? Many NR purchase multiple tags/stamps (residents on average appear to purchase at least 2.1 on average). What's the real number of NR hunters? I'll bet its closer to 40k than 86k. For instance elk/deer tags (excluding does/cows which are OTC with no cap) is only 32,800 NR elk/deer hunters.

To play devils advocate here. The original allocation was a total of 41,800 (17k combos and 9.8k deer (?)) issued for NRs. Allowing them to split the elk/deer apart has snowballed into what we have now for total hunters. I really don't think there is a drastically huge increase in total NR tags issued, rather a large increase in NR hunters. How many elk/deer left the state in a cooler last year vs 10 years ago?

Just think, with mandatory reporting we could answer this question quickly and easily.

 

[SwaggyD]

dickhead Doug

 

[SwaggyD]

There’s just no way Montana can sustain what’s happening. My boy is 2, I hunt some private for deer but a lot of public as well. By the time able to legally hunt I’m guessing most of private will be inaccessible and the public will be even more pressured. It’s sad to watch happen year by year.

 

[brockel]

There’s just no way Montana can sustain what’s happening. My boy is 2, I hunt some private for deer but a lot of public as well. By the time able to legally hunt I’m guessing most of private will be inaccessible and the public will be even more pressured. It’s sad to watch happen year by year.

My oldest is almost hunting age and it sucks to see what Montana has become knowing her and her younger sister will never get to experience it as I did.

 

[Ought Six]

Can we at least just stop hammering mule deer does? A lot of other things need to happen too, but I’d compromise with just that as a start. Idk what it is that makes a guy’s dik feel so big when they hammer a mule deer doe off the side of the road but it must be like cocaine for some people.

 

[Mtnhunter1]

I believe that Gerald started this post, with data, to bring to light just how skewed MTFWP is with our wildlife management vs total tag sales.

I also believe that we'd all agree the MTFWP has all but forgotten what true wildlife management is on our public lands. All of us that have hunted Montana's public lands have seen our wildlife dwindling away. The wildlife decline is now very noticeable from year to year. Without a dramatic change to the entire system, the future of our public land hunting looks very bleak.

Meanwhile, the future of hunting on Montana's private lands has never looked brighter! It's amazing when predator management, both two legged and four, is implemented across the landscape. My guess is that 75% to 80% of Montana's elk now spend most of their days on limited or no public hunter access lands.

Montana's large blocks of public lands, especially the wilderness areas, were once the elk strong holds. Now, as Buzz always harps, these vast wild lands are damn near devoid of elk and should be hunted by limited permit only.

The elk number decline in the Bob mirrors what is happening to the mule deer in the Custer and the whitetails in the Swan. Doesn't matter what region or species, if your hunting the public you've noticed a serious decline in both age class and numbers.

I don't know what the future holds for our wildlife on public lands.....but I can guess?

 

[DFS]

I do need to apologize for being a dickhead. It was hard to watch decent hunting go to ok hunting and ok hunting go to awful hunting. Meanwhile people are pumping it up as awesome hunting and the fwp is sitting here telling us everything is good. I would be willing to give up a lot of opportunity for a decent hunt in Montana and wildlife where they should be on the landscape.

Doesn’t change the fact that step 1 is fwp admitting things aren’t good where most of us hunt. That isn’t even close to happening.

 

[mr_steve]

For me it seems that the MT FWP has to get back to focusing on their mission and quit being influenced by greed and selfish desires from private landowners, outfitters and even hunters.

“Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, through its employees and citizen commission and board, provides for the stewardship of the fish, wildlife, parks, and recreational resources of Montana, while contributing to the quality of life for present and future generations.”

In my opinion, to be a steward of the resource you need good data to make decisions which is why the reporting would help. Also the statement above does not mention anything about selling more tags or raising prices to help meet their budget. That would decrease the quality of life part of the statement.

I feel the individuals in the field offices understand their regions best and their input should be very valued. The director seems to have too many wealthy friends with selfish desires that influence him.

Prior to every decision MT FWP makes, they should ask “Is this going to help the resource or are we doing this because of a different influence?”.

Also it’s my understanding there’s a correlation between license sales and their budget? Admittedly I do not know the details of how that works out but I’d like to make sure the budget is not dependent on sales or connected in any way. Mets manage for the quality of the resource and not to raise funds for a budget (paychecks).

In response to Gerald’s original post to help keep this on topic, I like seeing the data but it is evident it may not be the best data. I’d like to see a commission of the field offices would be responsible for this data as well as implementing changes to improve harvest and survey data. The region offices will no best.

 

[mr_steve]

I believe that Gerald started this post, with data, to bring to light just how skewed MTFWP is with our wildlife management vs total tag sales.

I also believe that we'd all agree the MTFWP has all but forgotten what true wildlife management is on our public lands. All of us that have hunted Montana's public lands have seen our wildlife dwindling away. The wildlife decline is now very noticeable from year to year. Without a dramatic change to the entire system, the future of our public land hunting looks very bleak.

Meanwhile, the future of hunting on Montana's private lands has never looked brighter! It's amazing when predator management, both two legged and four, is implemented across the landscape. My guess is that 75% to 80% of Montana's elk now spend most of their days on limited or no public hunter access lands.

Montana's large blocks of public lands, especially the wilderness areas, were once the elk strong holds. Now, as Buzz always harps, these vast wild lands are damn near devoid of elk and should be hunted by limited permit only.

The elk number decline in the Bob mirrors what is happening to the mule deer in the Custer and the whitetails in the Swan. Doesn't matter what region or species, if your hunting the public you've noticed a serious decline in both age class and numbers.

I don't know what the future holds for our wildlife on public lands.....but I can guess?

Very good point that private land hunting has improved and public has declined. I think several of the decision makers like the director are heavily influenced by private land owners and outfitters that are looking to selfishly benefit from this disparity by changing rules rather than balance it or simply focusing on the health of the resource overall.

 

[Hunting Wife]

Also it’s my understanding there’s a correlation between license sales and their budget? Admittedly I do not know the details of how that works out but I’d like to make sure the budget is not dependent on sales or connected in any way. Mets manage for the quality of the resource and not to raise funds for a budget (paychecks).

Virtually every state wildlife department is funded through license sales. This is by design because historically, conservation funding was never a priority for politicians during the budgeting process and general funds were always redirected to other things. Removing funding from political control provides more reliable and stable funding. It may not be a perfect system, but it is vastly better than having wildlife budgets be a political football.

Look at what happens today- the marijuana tax in Montana is a perfect example. We passed recreational marijuana, with the understanding that a good chunk of the taxes were supposed to go to FWP for nongame wildlife. Every year since then, the state tries to redirect that money to other things.

 

[SAJ-99]

Why do some think this is what a FWP office looks like every time some legislation that creates more permits comes up…

 

[SwaggyD]

Why do some think this is what a FWP office looks like every time some legislation that creates more permits comes up…

Seems accurate actually.

 

[mr_steve]

Virtually every state wildlife department is funded through license sales. This is by design because historically, conservation funding was never a priority for politicians during the budgeting process and general funds were always redirected to other things. Removing funding from political control provides more reliable and stable funding. It may not be a perfect system, but it is vastly better than having wildlife budgets be a political football.

Look at what happens today- the marijuana tax in Montana is a perfect example. We passed recreational marijuana, with the understanding that a good chunk of the taxes were supposed to go to FWP for nongame wildlife. Every year since then, the state tries to redirect that money to other things.

I agree permit/license sales should help fund the budget.

I simply don’t want incentive to increase permit/license numbers or price to increase the budget.

Maybe I’m misinformed and this isn’t an issue?

 

[SAJ-99]

Maybe I’m misinformed and this isn’t an issue?

It's not always about misinformed. It is just confusing, so you revert back to follow the money. Welcome to politics. You just might be blaming the wrong group. FWP staff are not paid a % of license revenue collected. Day-to-day staff typically don't care if you buy one mule deer doe tag or 5 of them. All of these changes and extras were not for "the people of MT" or for FWP to increase funding, they were to satisfy a specific subset of people who complained...sorry, lobbied. See 454. However, there is no reasonable way to explain the NR college student permit allocation. The prices are at a deep discount and the doc shows very few people are taking advantage of it. Basically, it's stupid. So either Bat-chit crazy is now the law of the land in Big Sky Country, or someone got paid to vote for this mess. We just can't figure out who. Killing things that are in place are much more difficult.

 

[antlerradar]

It's not always about misinformed. It is just confusing, so you revert back to follow the money. Welcome to politics. You just might be blaming the wrong group. FWP staff are not paid a % of license revenue collected. Day-to-day staff typically don't care if you buy one mule deer doe tag or 5 of them. All of these changes and extras were not for "the people of MT" or for FWP to increase funding, they were to satisfy a specific subset of people who complained...sorry, lobbied. See 454. However, there is no reasonable way to explain the NR college student permit allocation. The prices are at a deep discount and the doc shows very few people are taking advantage of it. Basically, it's stupid. So either Bat-chit crazy is now the law of the land in Big Sky Country, or someone got paid to vote for this mess. We just can't figure out who. Killing things that are in place are much more difficult.

I agree that the extra tags are fruit of some legislator looking to gain favor with some group. Do not think for a minute that the money they generate is not important to FWP staff. Maybe not so much a game warden or lower level biologist, but the staff in Helena is a different story. I was at the meetings where the staff explained to the dollar how much each and every extra licensing program was bringing in to FWP.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I agree that the extra tags are fruit of some legislator looking to gain favor with some group. Do not think for a minute that the money they generate is not important to FWP staff. Maybe not so much a game warden or lower level biologist, but the staff in Helena is a different story. I was at the meetings where the staff explained to the dollar how much each and every extra licensing program was bringing in to FWP.

Gotta overexploit the resource by selling more licenses than the resource can sustain in order to properly manage the resource…

“It is FWP’s opinion that this additional opportunity will not negatively affect the resource.”

 

[SAJ-99]

I agree that the extra tags are fruit of some legislator looking to gain favor with some group. Do not think for a minute that the money they generate is not important to FWP staff. Maybe not so much a game warden or lower level biologist, but the staff in Helena is a different story. I was at the meetings where the staff explained to the dollar how much each and every extra licensing program was bringing in to FWP.

Sorry, but I find it hard to believe. Why should they say that part out loud? My problem with this whole theory is that all of those peoples’ raises are predetermined in contracts. Hank doesn’t get a raise from any of this. That is what makes it hard to understand.

 

[antlerradar]

Sorry, but I find it hard to believe. Why should they say that part out loud? My problem with this whole theory is that all of those peoples’ raises are predetermined in contracts. Hank doesn’t get a raise from any of this. That is what makes it hard to understand.

Hank was in the lead for most of those meetings. We were tasked with finding a way to make up the coming FWP budget short fall that would pass through the legislator. We went through every one of the discount and special programs and how much money they generated. The reason we voted to price all the discounts at 50% was in part to generate a little more money. Would it have been nice to get ride of the discount programs and make up the difference by increasing resident tag fees? yes it would have been, but the get through the legislator part was a problem.

 

[sclancy27]

The only people consistently killing elk are hunting private land, limited tags, poaching (filling their kids tags, party hunting, etc), or hunt 30/40 days of the liberal season. There is a select few that kill the 3-5% of bulls on public land, we all get lucky sometimes. A person should have an opportunity at getting a shot on a bull after 7/10 days of hard hunting. Not some bullshit of hunting 40 to 50 days over multiple sessions. Montana hunter per days of harvest are really screwed up. Secondly where in the hell are the game wardens? I never get checked, what the #*^@#* are thy doing? In other states I usually can kill an elk in 5/10 days. It doesn’t take 6 months. I see why people give up and start fishing, drinking beer, or golf or something. I run across game wardens in other states.

If you can't get a shot at a bull in 7-10 days in MT you suck, period. I understand there are number of problems, but it's called hunting, sometimes you gotta figure it out.

 

[Gerald Martin]

If you can't get a shot at a bull in 7-10 days in MT you suck, period. I understand there are number of problems, but it's called hunting, sometimes you gotta figure it out.

How is that relevant to address the mismanagement of the resource? FWP often deflects complaints of poor success rates by pointing out the uncertainty of hunting and how that success is dependent on the amount of effort hunters are willing to expend. Those truisms don’t address the biological issues of low age class of bulls, low bull/ cow ratios, over pressured elk finding sanctuary properties, etc.

Are Colorado and Wyoming hunters less sucky than MT hunters because their state’s management of the resource leads to higher success rates?