I think this thread is a valuable discussion. I hope it can stay on topic and can be conducted in a civil manner.
It will be interesting to see what happens with future tag allocations to non-residents. I know some states are moving toward a lower percentage to non-residents. New Mexico being the most recent. Oregon taking it from 10% to 2-5% a decade prior. And some states feeling they need more restrictions on NRs.
It is completely within the right of each state to do that. In fact, if states wanted to, they could go to 0% to non-residents. But, given the dependency on non-resident revenues, I doubt that is what will happen. And if proposed in my state of MT, I would fight it all the way.
In fact, I would advocate that MT should have a separate pool of tags for NRs that represent a true 10% of the limited entry tags. That would give them some transparency to what their odds are and they would know they are getting the true 10%, not the "up to 10%" as currently exists.
I could easily make a case as to why MT would benefit from providing 15% of all limited entry tags to NRs. I know if I promoted such idea, I would probably get burned at the stake when my fellow MT residents got their hands on me, but I would be open to that discussion.
In my mind, residents have to be careful both in how they price their non-resident hunting opportunity and how they allocate it. The more we price them out, the greater the likelihood the average self-guided hunter will not be able to participate. Just a function of economics. Yet, those who often express little concern for non-resident economics are the first to bemoan the commercialization of hunting and how they feel it is becoming a rich man's sport. You can't have it both ways.
On the flip side, non-residents, including me as a non-resident in all but one state, have a tendency to look at any change in tag allocation as taking away from us. When in reality, every tag we are given is one more tag than what a state is required to allocate to us. Legally, a state is not required to issue a single non-resident tag.
From that, when states like CO and WY are as generous to NRs as they are, I am ecstatic. When states like AZ, NV, UT, ID, AK give us 10%, I am still a happy guy, based on my perspective that they don't have to give us a single tag. And when states like CO, ID, AK, allow some over-the-counter opportunity, I am even happier. To me as a NR, the glass is way more than half full.
I know some NRs do not share the "glass is half-full" perspective I do. That is just human nature; we all look at it differently. And our perspective usually depends upon which shoes we are in; the R or the NR.
In the bigger picture, we need NRs to hunt in our states. The more people hunting, the better off we all are. Both from a funding stand point, but also from a bigger picture that hunting needs as many participants as possible.
I get a ton of emails from people who do not have elk hunting in their state. They all want to come an hunt an elk. Most of them don't care if they shoot a big bull, a raghorn, or a cow. Most of them just want to come and experience elk hunting with the possibility that they might see one. Converting these people to elk hunters is critical to the long-term future of elk hunting, elk habitat, and the other wildlife that benefits from elk conservation. They also represent a huge asset in the political and societal debates about wildlife conservation on the public lands that are a thousand miles from where they live.
I think it is rather ironic that at the same time, on the same days, on the same web forum, we have discussions about how we could lose hunting on Federal lands via some thinly veiled transfer/sale scheme where we westerners could benefit greatly from the input and participation of those living in the non-elk states; yet, on other threads we are having discussion about possibly reducing the ability of these non-residents to participate in hunting out west, via reductions in tag allocations and further increases in pricing to them.
It will be a pretty hard pitch to convince my friends and family in Minnesota to write Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar (their Senators) about the western public land issues, when all they see is less and less opportunity to participate in the greatest connection they have to those lands; hunting. Just a fact of how we as humans operate. If there is little in it for us, we have other demands on our time and interest that will engage us.
I am not sure where the intersection of R/NR opportunity lies. I am not sure where the best intersection of R/NR pricing ratios lies. I do know that we are all in this together and further division and staking out our camps with merely our own interest in mind, whether that be the NR interest or the R interest, probably spells a rough road for the future of hunting and conservation.
I also know that when we fight among ourselves over scarce resources, we have a tendency to focus on what is our share of the pie today. When we all know that building a bigger pie, putting more animals in the hills, is what helps us all, whether R or NR. Improving our wildlife numbers and the lands they live on not only helps us as hunters, it also furthers/retains our credibility with the non-hunting community who at times is provided some pretty damning examples that causes them to question what purpose and value hunting serves in today's world.
Anyhow, keep this discussion civil and on point. It is too valuable to let it be lost in the bickering and name calling that often results from discussion of these very passionate topics.
It will be interesting to see what happens with future tag allocations to non-residents. I know some states are moving toward a lower percentage to non-residents. New Mexico being the most recent. Oregon taking it from 10% to 2-5% a decade prior. And some states feeling they need more restrictions on NRs.
It is completely within the right of each state to do that. In fact, if states wanted to, they could go to 0% to non-residents. But, given the dependency on non-resident revenues, I doubt that is what will happen. And if proposed in my state of MT, I would fight it all the way.
In fact, I would advocate that MT should have a separate pool of tags for NRs that represent a true 10% of the limited entry tags. That would give them some transparency to what their odds are and they would know they are getting the true 10%, not the "up to 10%" as currently exists.
I could easily make a case as to why MT would benefit from providing 15% of all limited entry tags to NRs. I know if I promoted such idea, I would probably get burned at the stake when my fellow MT residents got their hands on me, but I would be open to that discussion.
In my mind, residents have to be careful both in how they price their non-resident hunting opportunity and how they allocate it. The more we price them out, the greater the likelihood the average self-guided hunter will not be able to participate. Just a function of economics. Yet, those who often express little concern for non-resident economics are the first to bemoan the commercialization of hunting and how they feel it is becoming a rich man's sport. You can't have it both ways.
On the flip side, non-residents, including me as a non-resident in all but one state, have a tendency to look at any change in tag allocation as taking away from us. When in reality, every tag we are given is one more tag than what a state is required to allocate to us. Legally, a state is not required to issue a single non-resident tag.
From that, when states like CO and WY are as generous to NRs as they are, I am ecstatic. When states like AZ, NV, UT, ID, AK give us 10%, I am still a happy guy, based on my perspective that they don't have to give us a single tag. And when states like CO, ID, AK, allow some over-the-counter opportunity, I am even happier. To me as a NR, the glass is way more than half full.
I know some NRs do not share the "glass is half-full" perspective I do. That is just human nature; we all look at it differently. And our perspective usually depends upon which shoes we are in; the R or the NR.
In the bigger picture, we need NRs to hunt in our states. The more people hunting, the better off we all are. Both from a funding stand point, but also from a bigger picture that hunting needs as many participants as possible.
I get a ton of emails from people who do not have elk hunting in their state. They all want to come an hunt an elk. Most of them don't care if they shoot a big bull, a raghorn, or a cow. Most of them just want to come and experience elk hunting with the possibility that they might see one. Converting these people to elk hunters is critical to the long-term future of elk hunting, elk habitat, and the other wildlife that benefits from elk conservation. They also represent a huge asset in the political and societal debates about wildlife conservation on the public lands that are a thousand miles from where they live.
I think it is rather ironic that at the same time, on the same days, on the same web forum, we have discussions about how we could lose hunting on Federal lands via some thinly veiled transfer/sale scheme where we westerners could benefit greatly from the input and participation of those living in the non-elk states; yet, on other threads we are having discussion about possibly reducing the ability of these non-residents to participate in hunting out west, via reductions in tag allocations and further increases in pricing to them.
It will be a pretty hard pitch to convince my friends and family in Minnesota to write Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar (their Senators) about the western public land issues, when all they see is less and less opportunity to participate in the greatest connection they have to those lands; hunting. Just a fact of how we as humans operate. If there is little in it for us, we have other demands on our time and interest that will engage us.
I am not sure where the intersection of R/NR opportunity lies. I am not sure where the best intersection of R/NR pricing ratios lies. I do know that we are all in this together and further division and staking out our camps with merely our own interest in mind, whether that be the NR interest or the R interest, probably spells a rough road for the future of hunting and conservation.
I also know that when we fight among ourselves over scarce resources, we have a tendency to focus on what is our share of the pie today. When we all know that building a bigger pie, putting more animals in the hills, is what helps us all, whether R or NR. Improving our wildlife numbers and the lands they live on not only helps us as hunters, it also furthers/retains our credibility with the non-hunting community who at times is provided some pretty damning examples that causes them to question what purpose and value hunting serves in today's world.
Anyhow, keep this discussion civil and on point. It is too valuable to let it be lost in the bickering and name calling that often results from discussion of these very passionate topics.
