Yep - and we are non-residents in those states with significant populations (assume we are discussing WY and MT), so our opportunity is the same as residents of the other 48 states' residents.
As Cushman and Wilm pointed out - there is very little viable annual opportunity for Pronghorn in CO and even less for whitetail deer. Bears, fine. That's not a species that makes or breaks a wildlife management department.
This is an apples to watermelons comparison. Combined, AZ and NM have ~100,000 elk within their borders (including a good number that mainly reside on some large sovereign nations). Colorado has 2.5X that many.
And let's be clear - Non-residents have the SAME OTC opportunity for Pronghorn in CO that we residents do.
Sound theory, I personally like it. But remember that these departments are competitors in many ways financially. They are competing for the same customer group.
I fully support a resident fee increase as long as we get more transparency, information, and input into both the Revenue and Expense. The current bill makes a lot of good steps in those directions.
The R/NR split doesn't rile me as much at this point. Sure, I'd like to have more limited tags available and have a less crowded experience, I bet no resident hunter would argue with that purely on the surface, but it's a very complicated issue. Personally, I'd like to see some results from the reports and 'new math' designated in the Financial Sustainability bill before we mess with the pie pieces.
