AZ Bonus Point Analysis

HornedToad · Mar 26, 2005

I just received my license renewal letter from AZGFD, which includes their annual bonus point distribution. For the "Sheep" category, the number of applicants in the pool for the "out years" keeps going UP!, rather than slowly decreasing as one would expect due to tags-drawn, drop-outs, etc. The only explanation that I've come up with, that more applicants are gaining the one-time hunter education point, and thus are moving up in the pool, doesn't seem to explain the matter fully.

I'll give an example (using 2003 and 2005 data (unfortunately, I don't have 2004 data)), but would appreciate any help in understanding what's going on...

2003 Top-5 points (9-13) 2415
2003 draw (40)

2004 pool (10-14) 2375
2004 draw (est.) (40)

2005 pool (11-15) 2335
projected

2005 Top-5 points (11-15) 2552
actual

Increase/(decrease) 187
actual over projected

Based on this analysis, the actual number of applicants in the "Top-5" pool actually increased by 107 from 2003 to 2005 in absolute numbers, and increased by 187 when estimating the attrition from those drawing tags in 2003 and 2004. How is this happening?

The only source of increased points that I am aware of (other than gaining one point per year upon buying a license and applying) is the hunter education point. Since you can only gain one hunter ed. point, the only prospects who could have used this process to move into the "Top-5" pool would be those who were one-year removed from this pool in 2003. In 2003, there were 617 applicants in the pool with 8 points. For the number of applicants in the "Top-5" pool to have increased by 187 from 2003 to 2005, fully 30% of these 617 8-point applicants would have had to have taken hunter's ed. between the "window" of 2003 and 2005. While this is possible, it seems unlikely, considering that these 187 persons could never have taken the hunter's ed. program before 2003 (and thus would already have had the one-time hunter's ed. point in 2003), and the pool of 617 contains many non-residents, who are less likely to take the AZ hunter's ed. program. Consider, this 30% is not the total percentage of those 8-point applicants who have taken hunter's ed., but rather only those who did so during the 2003-2005 window.

The above analysis projects even more unlikely outcomes in hunter ed. participation if extended beyond the Top-5 class. For example, if one were to consider the Top-8 years (6-13 in 2003 and 8-15 in 2005) the projected participation in hunter's ed. for 5-point applicants in 2003 (one out of the Top-8) would be 58% in the 2003-2005 window. Again, not impossible, but highly unlikely.

Given the above, if there some other factor at work in increasing the number of persons in the high-number pools. Is it possible to gain more than one point a year by applying for multiple subspecies (desert bighorns and rocky mountain bighorns)? I didn't think that that was permitted.

I apologize for this being complicated, but would appreciate any help in understanding what is going on. The concern, of course, is that appears that, despite applying every year, it still seems possible to continue falling further and further behind.

Thanks
HornedToad

ElmerFudd · Mar 27, 2005

The new 20% to the top pool could have encouraged some to get up off their butts to take the class. The whole lawsuit mess could have encouraged more nonresidents to take the supplimental class. There are reasons why this year's class could be bigger than anticipated. They probabally did not include the loyalty point. And next year's probable conservation point will errode current point value, unless you go do the work. Not likely many nonresidents will have the time. I think they are talking about 48 hours, so it would likely be at least three full weekends, but that is TBD.

HornedToad · Mar 28, 2005

I actually received a clear explanation to the above question today from an AZGFD representation.

Her explanation is that bonus point distributions provided in years past for applicants were adjusted to account for average points on group applications. As a result, the number of applicants with a high number of bonus points would be less than the absolute number of persons with high bonus points. This was because some of these persons would have had their bonus point numbers averaged down due to applying in groups with other applicants who had had a lower number of points.

The second explanation she gave was that the applicant numbers reflected only those persons who had actually applied during that draw year, while the "pool" given for the upcoming year counted all persons in the system for each respective bonus point pool, without any downward adjustment for estimated non-applyers.

Finally, the number of persons in each bonus point pool is increased each year by the number of persons electing to take the hunter ed. class during that year, thus gaining the extra bonus point. However, according to the AZGFD rep., this number is not large among high bonus point applicants in that many of these persons have already taken the hunter ed. program years ago.

I apologize that my explanation here is not as clear as that given by the AZGFD rep.

Case closed.

HornedToad

RamDreamer · Mar 28, 2005

HornedToad,

Thanks for getting to the bottom of it and giving the great follow up info to us. I just got my letter, with this bonus point info, in the mail today so was examining it this evening in light of your original post.

Makes sense. Even though I'm a non-resident, I spent some vacation time, flew to AZ and took the AZ hunter education course years ago in order to gain the additional bonus point. I'm at 12 bonus points on sheep going into this year's draw.

Thanks again,
RamDreamer