Why so little support among hunters for growing game populations?

[Nick87]

Hunting is a hobby.

For most it is. Majority on here it's more.

 

[Hammsolo]

Golf is a hobby.

If you go to all the golf courses and ask the golfers if they would like a nice new beautiful golf course to enhance their golfing experience. You would get a resounding YES. If you then ask them to donate a bunch of money and spend a bunch of their free time to build and maintain that nice new golf course, that will still cost them just as much, or more, to play on as what they now have. Probably not going to generate a lot of excitement.

Hunting is a hobby.

Actually, golfers pay crazy fees to golf for about 4 hours. At the Old Works in Anaconda you pay $109 for 18 holes. That’s $27.50 per hour.

Montanans pay $20 for an over the counter elk tag that gets them over 12 weeks of hunting. That’s $1.67 a week…

 

[Pucky Freak]

In hindsight, I could have been more detailed in the OP. “Grow the pie” mostly entails habitat protection, improvement, and restoration. The biggest exception I can think of is disease management in bighorn sheep.

There are some really cool opportunities out there that are within reach:
-Unlocking Habitat Montana funds for perpetual conservation easements, and getting the MT weed tax allocations squared away.
-In IA, unlocking IWiLL to dramatically clean up our waterways.
-Reforming the EAJA to clear the active forest management logjam
-Holding trustees and managers accountable for a responsible rollout of GAOA funds.
-Drawing the public’s attention to the ills of NF sheep grazing
-Starting up a National Pronghorn conservation 401c3
-Getting a backpack tax on the books
-Translating the new scientific data on elk calf disturbance into general recreation seasonal closures.

That’s just off the top of my head.

The thought for the day is to consider not exercising the privilege we have when it means pushing another hunter who lacks privilege out of that same opportunity.

Maybe that means getting a lease and sharing it. Choosing to not buy a transferable tag. Not getting in on the ground floor of a new point system. Supporting residents’ efforts, as a NR, to reduce NR tag allocations in the states we apply in (WY big 5, CO elk/deer, MT NR elk tag loopholes, etc.). And so on.

None of those things directly help habitat. But if I want to encourage other hunters to care about habitat conservation, I should probably also show them that I care about their hunting opportunity.

 

[Bigjay73]

For most it is. Majority on here it's more.

Well, yeah, meat in the freezer bro

 

[Nick87]

Well, yeah, meat in the freezer bro

"Meat in the freezer" is bad enough then throw "bro" on it and it's enough to make you go right for the jugular.

 

[KingOfTagSoup]

We also have to consider the broad concept of "wildlife as a nusciance". For example, in my state landowners get up to 10 nusciance tags because deer are "damaging the crops". If you are a subsistence farmer I can understand that. If you own tens of thousands of acres of cropland, I'm sorry, I highly doubt the wildlife is having any measurable impact on your crop yield. And yet we still dish out way too many tags because "they're damaging the crops"

 

[BuzzH]

I'm going to have a story to tell that will be pertinent to this thread, and it won't be pretty. Now isn't the time, but it's absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Ought Six]

Growing game populations doesn’t get you as many likes and comments on the socials as dead game

 

[Pucky Freak]

I'm going to have a story to tell that will be pertinent to this thread, and it won't be pretty. Now isn't the time, but it's absolutely ridiculous.

 

[lynlan1819]

Just spitballing here. Besides the complexity, cost and time required to put more game in the field, I think there might be a fundamental flaw in attempting to redirect hunters’ attention away from how we slice the pie, and towards making the pie bigger.

If you are of privilege, the total number of huntable animals might not significantly influence your hunting opportunity. If the pie shrinks, you can take opportunity away from the non-privileged in order to keep getting the same amount of pie every year.

If you are not of privilege, let’s say the bottom 90% of hunters by a variety of measures (nonresidents, too young to have got in on the bottom floor for points, LO, income level, etc.), it’s easy to be skeptical that a bigger pie will translate to more personal hunting opportunity due to the history of squandering tactics of the privileged groups.

A practical example: rewind the clock 2-3 decades to when point systems were created. The math for glory tags was known up front - all the people buying tags in the first few years will eventually get glory tags, and nearly all the new point buyers to follow will never get one. Hunting opportunity was intentionally carved away to ensure that the current generation got the best and most at the expense of the next generation getting carved out.

And it’s not just PP, look at when the oldest MT hunters grumbled about not getting their moose and sheep tags. They re-stacked the deck AGAIN by squaring their BP. In several other States outfitters secured tag carve-outs, and NM dumps half their elk to NR’s. WY’s One Shot Antelope “Hunt”, auction tags, governor tags…There are countless other examples.

A lot of hunters, myself included, get incensed by the carveout shenanigans. When the pie is small, can’t we at least divide it up equitably? Shrinking game herds can be the source of angst too, but it doesn’t help that there are dozens of factors influencing why the herd size is the size that it is. Blame gets thrown around to predators, habitat loss, disease, wildfire policy, liberal harvests, etc., but at the end of the day there is no smoking gun. But when MOGA-directed elected representatives slip in an 11th hour provision to a bill that gives every outfitted NR a free elk and deer PP, the culprits are unambiguously clear.

Landing the plane…

If I willfully choose to tune out the endless procession of hunting opportunity carveouts by the privileged, perhaps I can force myself to get more amped up about antelope habitat, etc. than I do about trustees of public resources failing to do their jobs.

If ID moves to a pure PP system, do I get in on the ground floor to secure a sweet tag at the expense of the next generation of hunters? Is it worth the cost of aiding in the future disillusionment of those hunters towards doing what is best for the resource?

Lots of hunters don't care because they are Poachers !

 

[Hammsolo]

Lots of hunters don't care because they are Poachers !

Should there be a more determined movement to differentiate poaching and hunting?

As a Science teacher, I have a lot of contact with non-hunters. I teach a great deal of system based thinking, ecosystems, and wildlife biology. I make sure to clearly differentiate between hunters and poachers.

Non-hunters, nearly 100%, align with a well-described vision of hunters as a vital and measured member of an ecosystem that actively manages the system for all variables.

When I explain what a poacher is, why they’re different than hunters, and why they’re so devastating to the system it becomes a powerful point to aline against.

 

[Lucky_Lep]

Occam's Razor:
Hunters' behavior over the past 10-20 years has been INSANE.
The 501(c)(3) approach towards conversation worked in the 70s-90s (i.e., RMEF).
Our adversaries changed the game and started attacking Hunting with a 501(c)(4) approach.
Until WE retaliate in kind, they will have no opposition, and OUR behavior will continue to be INSANE.

 

[WildWill]

"Meat in the freezer" is bad enough then throw "bro" on it and it's enough to make you go right for the jugular.

How about bruh? Funny how two little letters can make things worse.