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Moose in Montana

"Won" in an auction? Isn't the "winner" of an auction just the person willing to pay the most money? I'm heading over to Walmart now to "win" me some groceries. It's sad that states are forced to stoop to having auctions to raise funds.
I'll agree that auction tags are not ideal, and some states give far to many of them, IMO. However, Montana gives very few, and they are auctioned off at wildlife banquets to support their causes. In Montana, Ducks Unlimited gets the Moose Tag for Auction, so whatever this guy spent- let's call it $40K, goes to DU for their projects. Wildsheep Foundation sees the highest bids, with the tag going for ~half a million some years. Would I rather see a guy who's applied for 20 years kill one of those animals? Absolutely. Does that kind of money help wildlife and help us as sportsmen create more opportunity for our kids? Absolutely. There's a fine balance to be found with Auction Tags- it's my opinion, but I'd say that's one of the things MTFWP has done "about right" in recent years.
 
Why does DU get a moose tag? Wetlands? Is there a governor's sandhill crane tag... Money to good cause but just seems mis aligned.
 
FWP earmarks the proceeds for the Gov. tags to go towards research for that species. The selling organization gets 10% for their costs and projects.

At least that’s how it worked with the goat tag.
 
That one Governor’s tag probably funds more moose management than all the other moose draw tags combined.
If the state relys upon a private organization to create funding for management seems like a failure in design. If a NR moose tag is $1250 as google tells me, why have they not raised price to meet management needs? A $2250 tag would still be about same as Wyoming and would provide true budgetary security and utimately better herd management i would think. I always assumed organizations received full financial gain from these auctions/raffles. Is the 90/10 funding a standard amongest simular states? This might be off topic but is interesting to me. Thanks for your knowledge on subject!
 
If the state relys upon a private organization to create funding for management seems like a failure in design. If a NR moose tag is $1250 as google tells me, why have they not raised price to meet management needs? A $2250 tag would still be about same as Wyoming and would provide true budgetary security and utimately better herd management i would think. I always assumed organizations received full financial gain from these auctions/raffles. Is the 90/10 funding a standard amongest simular states? This might be off topic but is interesting to me. Thanks for your knowledge on subject!

Yes, that’s fairly standard. It’s not the case in every circumstance. In some, it is 0 ( such as California’s bighorn tag was for quite a while) and in others it may be a bit more but generally 90/10 is what you’d expect to see.
 
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