WesternSky
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As discussed in Thills thread, I participated last week in a focus group on license allocation. It was a well run meeting and it sounds like the commission is going to consider the recommendations from the group.
There 9 people there (1 didn't show) with a mix of interests. 5 of the 9 had outfitter interest in the form of owning an outfit or being a guide. I was leery of this in the beginning but it turned out okay.
Like thills meeting we threw out ideas that were written down and discussed amongst the group. From there, we voted on the top 3 that would be pushed to the commission.
1. I started if off with the proposal for a 90/10 R/NR split for all 1st choice ,limited, list A licenses for all species (so antelope, bear, turkey would be included since they are currently not). This would not apply to 2nd-4th choices, list B&C licenses, and leftovers. People in the group thought this was a good compromise and reduce the number of tags that NR would miss out on and money lost. This proposal received the most votes but there was significant resistance from one of the outfitters. I mentioned that a significant resident license increase needs to accompany a new allocation. In the meeting and on previous discussions here, it was recognized that this would create funding challenges. The CPW said to not consider the money aspect because there is a large pool of leftover money from previous license sales and they could make the reduced NR money work internally. I was surprised and encouraged by there ability to overcome this major challenge.
2. The next highest voted proposal was eliminating OTC completely. 3. After that was OTC for residents and limited for NR with caps(like WY's system). The % votes for both of these was really close. I don't like the idea of getting rid of OTC but I do think it is unsustainable going into the future. There was a lot of discussion about the number of hunters in OTC seasons, how it feels unsafe at times, and how CPW cant manage the herds with unlimited hunters.
The other ideas that didn't make the top 3 were noted and are a part of the meeting minutes. Some of those ideas included, making top units 60R/40NR split from 80/20 (going backwards!), mandatory reporting and not issuing tag to people that don't, harvest based allocation instead of license based quotas (keep hunting until a tag is filled, would severely limit opportunity) , changes to landowner %, and a couple others I didn't write down.
Its likely that it could be a combination of 1 and 2 or 3.
The recommendations will be moved to the commission who will make proposal that will be shared. Once done there will be public comment, like what was done on the 5 yr structure changes. From there they will make potential changes. The group suggested that any allocation changes be made in a phased in approach instead of all at once.
Overall I think it went well and we should see something happen in the future to get residents the allocation we should be receiving.
There 9 people there (1 didn't show) with a mix of interests. 5 of the 9 had outfitter interest in the form of owning an outfit or being a guide. I was leery of this in the beginning but it turned out okay.
Like thills meeting we threw out ideas that were written down and discussed amongst the group. From there, we voted on the top 3 that would be pushed to the commission.
1. I started if off with the proposal for a 90/10 R/NR split for all 1st choice ,limited, list A licenses for all species (so antelope, bear, turkey would be included since they are currently not). This would not apply to 2nd-4th choices, list B&C licenses, and leftovers. People in the group thought this was a good compromise and reduce the number of tags that NR would miss out on and money lost. This proposal received the most votes but there was significant resistance from one of the outfitters. I mentioned that a significant resident license increase needs to accompany a new allocation. In the meeting and on previous discussions here, it was recognized that this would create funding challenges. The CPW said to not consider the money aspect because there is a large pool of leftover money from previous license sales and they could make the reduced NR money work internally. I was surprised and encouraged by there ability to overcome this major challenge.
2. The next highest voted proposal was eliminating OTC completely. 3. After that was OTC for residents and limited for NR with caps(like WY's system). The % votes for both of these was really close. I don't like the idea of getting rid of OTC but I do think it is unsustainable going into the future. There was a lot of discussion about the number of hunters in OTC seasons, how it feels unsafe at times, and how CPW cant manage the herds with unlimited hunters.
The other ideas that didn't make the top 3 were noted and are a part of the meeting minutes. Some of those ideas included, making top units 60R/40NR split from 80/20 (going backwards!), mandatory reporting and not issuing tag to people that don't, harvest based allocation instead of license based quotas (keep hunting until a tag is filled, would severely limit opportunity) , changes to landowner %, and a couple others I didn't write down.
Its likely that it could be a combination of 1 and 2 or 3.
The recommendations will be moved to the commission who will make proposal that will be shared. Once done there will be public comment, like what was done on the 5 yr structure changes. From there they will make potential changes. The group suggested that any allocation changes be made in a phased in approach instead of all at once.
Overall I think it went well and we should see something happen in the future to get residents the allocation we should be receiving.
