P
Prism
Guest
LAST EDITED ON Apr-23-04 AT 07:58AM (MST)[p]Got this email this morning, thought some of you'd like to read it.
"We outfitters, representing you non-residents, are in a major fight to keep
the G&F department, at the insistence of a vocal group of residents, from
slashing the number of deer permits available in Region G and Region
H. Last year there were 1,600 permits in G and 1,800 in H. G&F is under
pressure to cut those to 800 permits for each area. This will result in a
very poor draw for the non-residents. That will affect you and me
both. The deer season will also be shortened. Residents want it only two
weeks. Hopefully they will give us a season from Sept 15 until Oct 8, only
cutting one week.
This is prompted by a winter kill and wolf predation. This winter was
less than normal snow and warmer than normal temperatures overall, but in
late November we had a lot of heavy wet snow, then December was quite cold
which crusted the snow making it difficult for deer to access the sparse
feed on the winter range because of a dry summer. The extent of the winter
kill will not be known until the first week of May when they do their
mortality counts.
The G&F Commission will decide April 27 on the final numbers and
season length. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do to help at this
point. We outfitters have met with G&F officials explaining our position
(see my article below). We have personally contacted them. We have argued
with residents. I am pasting below a letter I had printed in the paper. I
got some hate mail and rebuttals from residents because of it.
Anyway, this is to let you know so you can prepare yourself for the
drawing odds. I had earlier predicted a near 100% draw for my clients
based on the greatly increased price of the permits. That won't help much
if we only have half as many permits. So the draw may be tough.
Jonesy
Editor,
Regarding last week's letter to the editor regarding concerns about our
mule deer herd;
The conclusions are correct for the most part and reflect the concerns of
most people who hunt the Greys River. Our deer herd definitely needs
improvement. What we really need is more rain in the summer, milder
winters, fewer predators, and less hunting pressure. All will agree with
those solutions. Unfortunately, the only one we can effectively control,
as pointed out in the article, is the hunting pressure.
The Star Valley Outfitters Association and our local Game & Fish
officials, Gary Fralick and Todd Graham, had a long meeting on March 25.
We discussed these issues at length and proposed possible solutions. We
agreed on several points which, if adopted, will help the situation.
(a) We agreed that a permit cut in the number of nonresidents will help.
Whatever is required and that G&F feels is necessary we will accept even
though it hits us right in the pocketbook and that reflects in the local
economy as we hire fewer guides, wranglers, and cooks and we have less
profits to spend locally. However, it is not proper management that non-
residents are further limited in numbers whereas every single resident deer
hunter in Wyoming can buy a permit across the counter and show up in Greys
River. The article appears to be incorrect in saying that 41% of deer
hunters are non-resident. One thousand six hundred (1,600) Region G
Nonresident Deer tags were issued last year. Five thousand (5,000)
resident deer hunters hunted Region G. That is 24% nonresident and 76%
resident hunters. (figures provided by Gary Fralick at our meeting)
Incidentally, the 1,600 nonresidents paid $384,000 to G&F coffers for their
licenses while the 5,000 residents paid $125,000 (total) for theirs. By
G&F figures, 79% of the money collected from license fees comes from non-
residents. So drastically reducing or eliminating non-residents is not the
solution. Number-wise we could eliminate the non-residents totally and we
would still have thousands of hunters in the area.
Nothing can be done about the numbers of resident hunters for this
upcoming season, but in the future some sort of limiting regulation must be
promulgated. At the meeting almost all agreed that the least painful way
would be to impose a Regional requirement on resident hunters. This is NOT
a limited quota with a drawing, but simply that residents would have to
designate on their resident deer license, purchased over the counter, the
Region for which their license is valid. The effect of this regulation
would be that those who come from Cheyenne, Casper, Laramie, and other
parts of the state would have to choose if they want to hunt close to home
(after work and on weekends) or if they prefer to hunt only far away across
the state in Greys River. The implementation of this alone would reduce
hunting pressure, perhaps significantly.
(b) We agreed that we should eliminate the antlerless deer seasons. With
the impact wolves are beginning to make we may also need to eliminate cow
elk seasons. Our doe deer and cow elk are needed to produce wolf food.
(c) Bringing back four point seasons to help reduce hunting pressure and
to preserve a few more bucks is a good idea and agreed to by most of us.
We would modify that a bit to allow youth hunters (age 17 and under) to
take any antlered deer. Many of them have not killed a deer and we would
not deny them the opportunity to "get their feet wet".
(d) We STRONGLY disagree with shortening the seasons. A shorter season
puts all hunters into a shorter time frame and they kill just as many or
more deer because of the concentrated pressure. Reducing numbers while
keeping the season length the same will best preserve the quality of the
experience. To accomplish this, and to alleviate the concerns of our game
biologist regarding the possibility of a heavy snowstorm toward the end of
the season, we all agreed that good season dates would be opening September
10 and closing October 8. The season would be shorter by one day, but
moved up a week so that there would be less likelihood of a heavy snowstorm
and the resulting slaughter of migrating deer.
We urge you to contact your game department officials and make your
feelings known. Implementation of the above will improve the quality of
the experience for all."
Maury Jones
Grover, Wyoming
"We outfitters, representing you non-residents, are in a major fight to keep
the G&F department, at the insistence of a vocal group of residents, from
slashing the number of deer permits available in Region G and Region
H. Last year there were 1,600 permits in G and 1,800 in H. G&F is under
pressure to cut those to 800 permits for each area. This will result in a
very poor draw for the non-residents. That will affect you and me
both. The deer season will also be shortened. Residents want it only two
weeks. Hopefully they will give us a season from Sept 15 until Oct 8, only
cutting one week.
This is prompted by a winter kill and wolf predation. This winter was
less than normal snow and warmer than normal temperatures overall, but in
late November we had a lot of heavy wet snow, then December was quite cold
which crusted the snow making it difficult for deer to access the sparse
feed on the winter range because of a dry summer. The extent of the winter
kill will not be known until the first week of May when they do their
mortality counts.
The G&F Commission will decide April 27 on the final numbers and
season length. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do to help at this
point. We outfitters have met with G&F officials explaining our position
(see my article below). We have personally contacted them. We have argued
with residents. I am pasting below a letter I had printed in the paper. I
got some hate mail and rebuttals from residents because of it.
Anyway, this is to let you know so you can prepare yourself for the
drawing odds. I had earlier predicted a near 100% draw for my clients
based on the greatly increased price of the permits. That won't help much
if we only have half as many permits. So the draw may be tough.
Jonesy
Editor,
Regarding last week's letter to the editor regarding concerns about our
mule deer herd;
The conclusions are correct for the most part and reflect the concerns of
most people who hunt the Greys River. Our deer herd definitely needs
improvement. What we really need is more rain in the summer, milder
winters, fewer predators, and less hunting pressure. All will agree with
those solutions. Unfortunately, the only one we can effectively control,
as pointed out in the article, is the hunting pressure.
The Star Valley Outfitters Association and our local Game & Fish
officials, Gary Fralick and Todd Graham, had a long meeting on March 25.
We discussed these issues at length and proposed possible solutions. We
agreed on several points which, if adopted, will help the situation.
(a) We agreed that a permit cut in the number of nonresidents will help.
Whatever is required and that G&F feels is necessary we will accept even
though it hits us right in the pocketbook and that reflects in the local
economy as we hire fewer guides, wranglers, and cooks and we have less
profits to spend locally. However, it is not proper management that non-
residents are further limited in numbers whereas every single resident deer
hunter in Wyoming can buy a permit across the counter and show up in Greys
River. The article appears to be incorrect in saying that 41% of deer
hunters are non-resident. One thousand six hundred (1,600) Region G
Nonresident Deer tags were issued last year. Five thousand (5,000)
resident deer hunters hunted Region G. That is 24% nonresident and 76%
resident hunters. (figures provided by Gary Fralick at our meeting)
Incidentally, the 1,600 nonresidents paid $384,000 to G&F coffers for their
licenses while the 5,000 residents paid $125,000 (total) for theirs. By
G&F figures, 79% of the money collected from license fees comes from non-
residents. So drastically reducing or eliminating non-residents is not the
solution. Number-wise we could eliminate the non-residents totally and we
would still have thousands of hunters in the area.
Nothing can be done about the numbers of resident hunters for this
upcoming season, but in the future some sort of limiting regulation must be
promulgated. At the meeting almost all agreed that the least painful way
would be to impose a Regional requirement on resident hunters. This is NOT
a limited quota with a drawing, but simply that residents would have to
designate on their resident deer license, purchased over the counter, the
Region for which their license is valid. The effect of this regulation
would be that those who come from Cheyenne, Casper, Laramie, and other
parts of the state would have to choose if they want to hunt close to home
(after work and on weekends) or if they prefer to hunt only far away across
the state in Greys River. The implementation of this alone would reduce
hunting pressure, perhaps significantly.
(b) We agreed that we should eliminate the antlerless deer seasons. With
the impact wolves are beginning to make we may also need to eliminate cow
elk seasons. Our doe deer and cow elk are needed to produce wolf food.
(c) Bringing back four point seasons to help reduce hunting pressure and
to preserve a few more bucks is a good idea and agreed to by most of us.
We would modify that a bit to allow youth hunters (age 17 and under) to
take any antlered deer. Many of them have not killed a deer and we would
not deny them the opportunity to "get their feet wet".
(d) We STRONGLY disagree with shortening the seasons. A shorter season
puts all hunters into a shorter time frame and they kill just as many or
more deer because of the concentrated pressure. Reducing numbers while
keeping the season length the same will best preserve the quality of the
experience. To accomplish this, and to alleviate the concerns of our game
biologist regarding the possibility of a heavy snowstorm toward the end of
the season, we all agreed that good season dates would be opening September
10 and closing October 8. The season would be shorter by one day, but
moved up a week so that there would be less likelihood of a heavy snowstorm
and the resulting slaughter of migrating deer.
We urge you to contact your game department officials and make your
feelings known. Implementation of the above will improve the quality of
the experience for all."
Maury Jones
Grover, Wyoming
