Harvest Report Flawed?

[NMaddict]

Do harvest reports reflect the unit-wide landowner tags issued? It doesnt appear that they do. And if not why not? Is there any way to determine the number of landowner tags issued on a given hunt?

 

[Trad Bow 1979]

LAST EDITED ON Jul-11-15 AT 11:04AM (MST)[p]I don't think so but that would be Great if they did!

 

[hank4elk]

It is a harvest report.Should contain LO tags filled too since they have to report them too.But then again,it's NM.
You can look at the LO list and add them up.

 

[NMaddict]

So your saying that the private land numbers represent ranch only and unit wide tags combined?

 

[NMaddict]

I did add them up and the numbers are staggering.

 

[nm_alazan]

Just looking at one unit (since I don't have time to evaluate all of them), it appears that the harvest report does include both E-plus and SCR private land tags.

I can't say I'm absolutely sure since I don't have last year's landowner lists, but based upon this year's, the numbers appear to be very close. Landowner tag numbers vary year to year, plus some authorizations don't get converted to tags, which is not uncommon for cow tags.

 

[bobby]

It shows each unit broken down as private tag success so it is inculded

 

[NMaddict]

So your saying that unit wide and ranch only vouchers are grouped together as "private"? Seems like they should be seperate especially in regards to success percentages. Seems like they intentionally fail to break down the landowner vouchers by hunt and/or voucher type. Out of sight, out of mind?

 

[nm_alazan]

Yes, I believe unit wide and ranch only are grouped together in private. As far as "intentional," yes to some degree, since that is the way their bookkeeping works (public tags separate from private tags).

No matter how they broke out the success rates, it wouldn't be an exact picture. Public tags are valid on private land, and some unit wide private tags get used ranch only, so there is no way of knowing the exact success percentages on public vs private land without adding a bunch of effort, and to do that would probably raise tag prices to accommodate the additional management costs. I'm fine with it the way it is. It's good enough for the G&F to manage the herd, and that's really the purpose of the success rates, not to make hunters choose the right area to hunt (success rate doesn't mean a darn thing if you don't know how to hunt).

Let's also not forget, the success rates even as they are represent a guess to some degree, not everyone returns their harvest results, so the G&F projects kills based upon the returned results (run the numbers, it's not just number of reported harvests divided by # of tags).

Additionally, the harvest data is only as good as the people who are giving it to them (i.e. hunters, and I have no doubt that some of them lie on their harvest reports, further skewing the data).

 

[NMaddict]

Thanks. You made some very interesting points. I have a much clearer picture of the process now

 

[Reuben_Soady]

Divvying up tags by ranch-only vs unit wide would functionally make each ranch a new GMU. I'm pretty sure that G&F don't need to manage the elk herd on each ranch, even the few that are actually large enough that the elk stay year round. Ranchers figure that out on their own. Besides, managing at that level of spatial detail is absurd compared to the uncertainty in the actually population size estimates. Notice also that the herd numbers are usually derived from the combination of several GMUs. These management decisions make a lot of sense considering the mobility of elk.

 

[huntswnm]

All the comments so far are about elk, which I agree with all, however this issue is even uglier when looking at deer tags. At least with "private" elk tags they know how many have (or can) be given out. "Private Land" deer tags are a free for all with unlimited numbers and very little regulation of who can get one and what qualifies their property. I guarantee that the worker at Wally World will not question someone asking to buy a private land deer tag.

Jeff