S-U-O

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by Rogue 6:
"Try looking up the definition of Capitalism. USO is a for-profit company, and as such, they have a fiduciary duty to maximize the long term sustainable value to their shareholders. As long as their management feels this is how it is best done, and their shareholders agree, their behaviour is rational"

EG, why not use this rational with: ranching, hydro energy, mining, logging, oil, coal, property developement and on and on.

A little bit of ethical ballance is a good thing. Most of us here like are stocks to go up, but at what cost. If I had stock in USO, (which is probably private not public) I would have already sold it. I, unlike the USO and there lawyers don't want fithy lucre.

/
R-6,
I am good with removing the cattle off of our public resources. You don't want USO making money on PUblic Lands and with Public Animals, I don't want Joe Welfare rancher doing the same.

C-Free,
I don't think you can use the entire $50million as a base, (there is ATV registrations, and boat licenses in it) and the Annual Reports don't break out enough detail. If you look at the cost of the resident tags vs. non-res tags, and figure a 90/10 split, I think you still see 50/50 funding.

I think where AZ got in trouble was the artificial caps on the non-resident tags. With Idaho selling OTC tags, we are probably not in the cross hairs of USO.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Idaho sells OTC tags. Arizona, in maintaining a great population of trophy quality animals, does not. Arizona residents have to put in for a draw, along with the non-residents. It seems only fair to me that they get a larger number of tags for their local area. Some of them may not be able to afford out-of-state trips to hunt. Since their state appears to be doing a better job of managing the game populations (otherwise, why does everyone want to hunt there?), they are penalized by fewer hunting opportunities in their own state. Taking the drawing advantage away provides more opportunity for the well-heeled hunter and takes away opportunities for the local bubbas.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by Calif. Hunter:
Taking the drawing advantage away provides more opportunity for the well-heeled hunter and takes away opportunities for the local bubbas.

Aren't you the guy with a Landowner tag in your pocket???

Talk about taking away opportunity for the local bubbas....

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Different subject. Trying to refocus attention rather than answering my points?

But ... I don't think it does - the landowner isn't going to let anyone hunt his property for free anyway. Having the landowner tags encourages the landowner to ranch for wildlife, which does not stay on his ranch. Read the article about the rancher letting the locked bulls die rather than let Fish and Game into his property to save them. To him, perhaps they are just large vermin, eating his alfalfa and competing with his cows. If he can sell landowner tags to offset his losses to wildlife, then he is more favorably disposed to wildlife.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Gosh, I had never thought that buying Landowner tags was such a noble and glorious way to celebrate our wild game animals....

Maybe we should just let all the tags be allocated to the landowners, and let them sell them for what ever price rich Californians will pay, leaving Joe Six-Pack out of the hunting game....

Just as the rancher who's pockets you lined is taking advantage of the system, so is USO. Why do you support the greed of the rancher to sell tags for PUBLIC animals, but not USO to obtain a level playing field for non-residents?

 

[Calif. Hunter]

"Gosh, I had never thought that buying Landowner tags was such a noble and glorious way to celebrate our wild game animals...."

How is it any different than buying any other tag to celebrate, I mean kill, our wild game animals?


What losses did the non-resident hunter suffer from the "PUBLIC animals?"

Did I ever say "let all the tags be allocated to the landowners, and let them sell them for what ever price rich Californians will pay, leaving Joe Six-Pack out of the hunting game...."

Has the landowner tag system in fact eliminated local hunting in ANY area? Not hypothetically - but in reality?

What is wrong with taking advantage of the system, if it is legal? You brought up the profit motive and the commerce clauses of the Constitution. Do those only apply when YOU think they should?

Again - the "PUBLIC animals" are eating the private crops of the landowner. By your reasoning, we OWE him compensation, do we not?

Rather than have him shoot them ALL under a depredation permit, he gets a couple of tags that he is able to sell. Thus, all the animals that eat his crops, including the ones that wander onto the adjacent public land, are not killed. Some of them are, in fact, available to the local hunters.

Once again - this is off the subject of non-residents getting equal treatment as resident.

 

[Nemont]

EG,

Maybe we should just let all the tags be allocated to the landowners, and let them sell them for what ever price rich Californians will pay, leaving Joe Six-Pack out of the hunting game....

You are being a little inconsistent. USO's goal of changing the number of tags available to NR hunters is having the same effect. Joe Sixpack is going to be pushed out of the game in states such as Arizona.

Look at what USO said: a 10% cap is acceptable in Arizona but in New Mexico they want a higher cap, They want a 25% cap on the primo sheep hunting units in Montana. There are a ton of people who are residents who will never have the opportunity to hunt prime units, on public land, for trophy animals even once in their lifetime. Where does it end? If USO had it's way the wealthy will be the only ones hunting and we will become like Europe.

I cannot believe you support USO's position in this thing. I know you will say it is capitalism, the constitution guarantees it but hunting has always been a states rights issue. By opening it up to the federal courts we, as hunters, will all eventually be losers in the situation.

Nemont

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Thanks for bringing us back onto the topic, Nemont.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Cali,

Are your high priced landowner tags INCREMENTAL to the game management plan's harvest goals, or are they a subset of? Did the F&G raise the harvest and the tag allottments by the quantity of the Landowner tags, or did they reduce Joe Six-Pack's tags to allow greedy ranchers to sell them to rich Californians?

Either way you answer, you are taking away opportunity for Joe Six-Pack. If they are additional tags, then the harvest will be higher than planned, resulting in decreases in animals/tags in later years. If they came out of the General allocation, then Joe Six-Pack has fewer tags to draw from.

How can you defend Landowner tags as anything other than an attack on the common hunter, and just further nailing the lid on the hunting coffin? If only rich Californians can afford to Elk Hunt, do we really have a sport???

Nemont,
I don't support USO, nor do I support their business model. But I would prefer to see the "Market" reject their business model.

I would actually prefer to see AZ raise the prices of their Resident tags to "fair market price", and then you would not see the demand for the tags, nor the need for USO to sue to remove the cap.

I think you could make a compelling argument for the end of "non-resident" tags, and we just raise the price in all Western states to some level that allows Supply to equal Demand. Kind of like in the Free Market.

If you think USO is going to get un-fairly rich, anybody on this board could open a competitive business up, tomorrow. If their profits are TOO high, then the market will dictate that other competitors can come in and undercut pricing and still earn a reasonable rate of return.

Look at Non-Res tags and such like "Trade", and if you buy into Dubya's garbage, Free Trade is the way to be. Once we remove Quotas, Caps, Barriers, and such, then all parties in all states benefit.

Look at Ten's comments against paying ID fish and game more $$$, and the proposed fee increase. The residents of the state are the last ones to want to support the department's efforts to manage the game.

I pay more this year in AZ for licenses/tags this year than I pay in Idaho. I pay more this year in MT for licenses and tags than I do in Idaho. I pay more in this year Alaska for tags than I do in Idaho. I pay more in this year Nevada for tags than I do in Idaho.

I fully recognize as a Resident of Idaho, that we rely on Non-residents to carry much of the burden for our game. Locals don't want to pay $100 for an Elk tag, we like $28, and we allow non residents to pay $376 (or something).

 

[Calif. Hunter]

If there are more animals, the harvest is bigger and the local hunters benefit from this as well.

The quota is based upon the number of animals. I do not think that my tags take away anything from the local hunter. In fact, they may benefit the local hunter by encouraging landowners to cooperate with fish and game and implement management practices on private property. More animals means more tags and more opportunity.

Funny how I am now a rich Californian, when before I could not afford a ticket to watch Moore's misinformation. But I won't rise to EG's bait of trying to make it personal.

He still has not addressed the issues I 've raised:

1. Does the landowner deserve compensation if the "PUBLIC animals" are eating his crops?

2. Have landowner tags, in fact - not fantasy, eliminated other hunters in any area?

3. Is it better to have the landowner shoot all the animals on a depredation permit, or to give him a few tags to sell?

 

[Nemont]

EG,

Do you feel that by residing in Idaho and paying your property taxes there, your state income taxes there, your state gas tax there, by having the power to vote for Idaho's political leaders etc, etc. that you should have some special priveleges when it comes to hunting tags?

I know that I chose where I live because it is a great place to raise kids, the hunting and fishing is terrific and there are not crowds of people. Through my taxes I pay a lot of $$$ to fund schools, local and state government service etc, etc. Why should some one who decides to live in Georgia but still wants the chance to hunt mule deer in Montana pay the same as I do? Should he have the opportunity to hunt here absolutely. Do residents pay too little for the chance to hunt he same animal? Depends on how you figure out what it actually costs the resident to hunt.

I am glad you don't support USO's position because in all the posts you made it appeared that you did.

Nemont

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by Calif. Hunter:
If there are more animals, the harvest is bigger and the local hunters benefit from this as well.

The quota is based upon the number of animals. I do not think that my tags take away anything from the local hunter.

Do you know this, or are you making it up like you did with the Taxpayers funding AZ fish and game?

If the landowner needs compensation, then give the landowner some money to pay him for his actual documented losses. But to bribe him with tags, in hopes that he will work with the State agency seems a bit wrong.

Does your tag allow you to only hunt on the Deeded land, or are you allowed to hunt anywhere in the unit?

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by Nemont:
EG,

Do you feel that by residing in Idaho and paying your property taxes there, your state income taxes there, your state gas tax there, by having the power to vote for Idaho's political leaders etc, etc. that you should have some special priveleges when it comes to hunting tags?

I

Nemont,

Given that the funding for IDFG comes from the sale of licenses, I hope that the Fish and Game only caters to hunters, and does not listen to me based upon my taxes or my residency. I would hate for them to start listening to non-hunters or start catering to people based upon the taxes paid.

I would love to see Idaho resident hunters start funding the department at reasonable levels, in order to enforce the laws on the books, arrest all the law breaking Fat-Assed ATV riders, and do adequate studies to prove, for the 1,000th time, that the dams need to be breached.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

"Do you know this, or are you making it up like you did with the Taxpayers funding AZ fish and game?"

Every place I have checked indicates that the harvest quota is based upon the surveys and the number of animals in the unit. Are you asserting that the numbers are just a random guess on the part of the management agency? (My brother, a senior biologist with the USF&W service, confirms that he knows of no agency that does not base tag and license numbers upon population estimates and "desirable harvest levels.")


Simply paying the landowner compesation for losses does not encourage him to "ranch for wildlife." The wildlife will still just be considered pests, eating his crops or competing with hius livestock and requiring him to go through mounds of paperwork and government bureaucracy to get reimbursed for losses.

Why not encourage him to provide better conditions for wildlife?


(Here is a link to one of his papers, just so you know I did not "make him up"...

http://www.tchester.org/sgm/animals/bears_stralen.html

 

[JoseCuervo]

Does your tag allow you to only hunt on the Deeded land, or are you allowed to hunt anywhere in the unit?

 

[Rogue 6]

Actual EG I was trying to politely show the hypocrisy of your arguement. I get all pissed off every time some johnny-come-lately moves into my state and starts pushing around the people that have been here for generations. Oregon has more than tripled in size in the last 20 years with the majority of growth transplanting from commyfornia. USO is a classic case of an outsider with a little money pushing around an entire group of people, because he can. He is hurting hunting, not helping it. He is a manipulator bending the rules to help himself and knowone else. His case is based only on interstate trade, he does not care about hunting only his checkbook. Over the long run the less hunters we have the more legislation will be past that negitively effects our past time. He is hurting all of us.

 

[danr55]

"Do you really think the problem is USO, or is it actually the Landowner Tags, Outfitter Set-Aside tags, and Non-Resident Quotas???

USO is just playing by the rules (or having them ruled un-constitutional) that were cobbled together to provide unfair preference to PUBLIC game for landowners, outfitters, and residents."

EG, How do you think USO makes it's living? Do you believe that the grateful landowners sign exclusivity agreements or hand over land owner tags out of gratitude or good will toward USO for just helping out?

It may just be me, but that arguement seems to me a conflict in ideas to me.

You need to get all of your arguments in one bag youngster and try to figure out which side of this controversy you are really on. Sometimes I think you argue just because you like to argue.

 

[JoseCuervo]

DanR,

Don't you think you could undermine USO's business by eliminating the Landowner tags?

Then they are just a booking agent for outfitters and a "application service" for those who can't mail applications in on time.

The only reason USO is "rich" and successful is they have figured out how to control scarce items (tags). If you remove the certainty of their tags, they lose their value.

I would guess all the "boycott" activities has not and will not hurt USO the least. The people who use their services are not likely to be worried about injustices to AZ resident hunters.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

USO does not control scarce tags, other than some landowner tags. They simply apply in the drawings for those who can't/won't/don't want to do so themselves. Or they buy landowner tags for whatever the "Free market" will bear. From previous comments, EG, you support the free market concept. USO simply wants their clients to draw more tags - something they wouldn't care about if they already controlled these scarce tags.

For many areas, there are no landowner tags and USO simply provides a yearly application service that the client uses until he gets lucky. For example, I don't know of any landowner tags for bighorn sheep - are there any? (I'm honestly asking, not professing to know.)

If USO had enough landowner tags in Arizona, they would not have needed to sue in order to get more tags, obviously.

If USO is "rich and successful," it is not because they control scarce tags - it is because they provide a service that people are willing to pay for. Many gun writer-hacks use them simply so that they can have their hunts for subject matter. (and they probaly get a decent discount for referencing USO in the article...)

"I would guess all the "boycott" activities has not and will not hurt USO the least."

Several companies have withdrawn sponsorship of USO's television show, and that does hurt them.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Cali,

Have you ever looked into USO's service? Ever filled out one of their applications, or even downloaded it?

I would bet the Application service is a Loss Leader for USO, and their money maker is the Landowner and Outfitter tags they upsell the application customers to.

If they didn't have the tags, then any kid with a PC could offer similar service.