Trust, Point of View and Philosophy

[Cam@strawberry]

With all the hub bub goin on right now with SFW, DNR, the wasatch and quality vs. quantity, I thought i'd try and be a bit intelligent.

May a state a few things I deem as fact.

1st The current problem facing wasatch is not opportunity or quality, that is a Point of view thing. some see it one way, bess always sees it another way. ;-) The real problem facing all wasatch hunters universally is the distribution of Antlerless tags.

2nd SFW is a point of view deal, depending on your point of view SFW may be correct or they may not be correct. One side is no more right than the other side, it just depends on how you see things and what you want. To say someone is naive or otherwise inhibited is impressing your point of view on them.....both sides may or may not be wrong or right. UWC is no more correct than MDF, SFW is not better than RMEF, it all depends on your point of view......

3rd Quality vs. Quantity Again this is a Point of view thing, who am i to say that opportunists are up in the night? On the flip side what right does an opportunist have to tell a trophy hunter that he is a menace to hunting? your point of view is yours, that does not make it the correct one, however.

4th DNR I believe this to be a trust issue. Either you trust what they have to say or you don't. No longer is this a Point of View battle. hence the issues with the wasatch right now.....many people have a big trust issue with the recommendations and numbers that were presented this year, along with recommendations and numbers in years past. Causing people to form points of view.

Now my opinion is this, the numbers that the DNR presented us with this year on the wasatch are flawed. (Trust issue) They will negatively affect all hunters for years to come on this unit. (P.o.V) The state of Utah is not in a position to offer more opportunity for deer. (P.o.V) Due to poor management from the DNR biologists. (Trust issue)

The point of this was to try and knock it thru some thick skulls (mine included) that they are no more right than whomever it is they are blowing their top off at.

Hopefully my philosophy makes a bit of sense to anyone who takes a stab at reading this.

And believe me i'll keep on throwing my rhetoric at tree, cache, SWbuck and anyone else who says something that makes me think I'm God's gift to the world with all the answers.....what fun would it be if we didn't????

 

[goofyelk]

Pretty damn sad to see (and know) what is about to take
place on the Wasatch this fall..

It could look a lot like Nebo when said and done, especially
if these tag numbers continue into next year....IT SUCK's..

Barry, I'm the guy that BS's Sterling over at Renegade
all the time. Take mt kids camping in the narrows..
Guide a bit too....
Wink ;-)

 

[Tree]

>
>3rd Quality vs. Quantity Again
>this is a Point of
>view thing, who am i
>to say that opportunists are
>up in the night?
>On the flip side what
>right does an opportunist have
>to tell a trophy hunter
>that he is a menace
>to hunting? your point
>of view is yours, that
>does not make it the
>correct one, however.

I absolutely agree with this point. One point of view should not take precedence over another when the biological implications are nil. Find out what every hunter wants and manage the state accordingly. If 95% want quality, manage it for quality and vice versa.

The issue is that this could be problematic if the results aren't conducive to maximizing certain tag values.........

http://unitedwildlifecooperative.org

 

[Daxter]

That is a pretty good assessment. To a large degree "wildlife management" is based on social, political and economic factors in addition to the actual biology.

I am curious, what is it you don't trust about the DWR's data? Do you question their counts? Is it the people doing the counts,the methodology of how they do the counts, where/when they do the counts? What specific things does the DWR do that you don't trust?

The elk population objectives that have been exceeded on the Wasatch unit are based largely on a social and economic based carrying capacity. Many areas in the state have the biological capacity grow and hold more elk without doing any more habitat improvement work. However, it might mean giving up some livestock grazing on public lands and farmers and ranchers putting up with more elk eating their haystacks, tree farms, yards, etc. in winter. Because our society wants to keep public land livestock grazing and can only put up with/pay for so much agricultural damage by wildlife there is a population objective on each elk unit in the state.

If any, there are probably only a handful of areas in the state where elk populations are so large that they are doing damage to the habitat and actually meeting a biological threshold.

Figuring out a balance that makes everyone happy all the time is impossible where there are competing interests.

Managing elk herds like some folks (cough Bessy cough) wants to, i.e. never shooting any cows, and only killing a very limited number of gigantic bulls each year is not a realistic option based on the social, political, economic and biological constraints that affect elk management in Utah.


Dax

There is no such thing as a sure thing in trophy mule deer hunting.

 

[Cam@strawberry]

Dax, this may not be a direct answer to you question why don't i trust the DNR but hopefully it may suffice.

I struggle to trust an agency that so obviously has a flawed system yet issues recommendations regardless. Jumping 2000 elk on the wasatch and chalk creek, is a question mark and when we don't know the reason for sure, it may not be a good idea to issue tags based on it.

Issuing 109 Cow moose permits and shooting the herd out so badly that they had to recommend 0 permits this year

Issuing 3300 cow tags on the snatch will not fix the problem, our biologist knows it. Yet it was still recommended.....what is that dax??? Its lunacy, its a political leverage point IMHO just so someone can say well we did our part we crunched the numbers and this is what it said to do.....my job is safe.....

It's hard for me to believe what i'm told anymore when what i'm told isn't working and if you know much about the management of strawberry lately you would know exactely what i'm talking about.....

Point in case, the DNR biologists haven't impressed me lately and fail to see what common sense is showing them.....

And Goofy, I'm not exactely sure who it is you are i feel like i should know but i'm not totally positive.....I drive a red dodge if you see me say hello...;-)

 

[AWHOLELOTTABULL]

LAST EDITED ON May-09-11 AT 07:24AM (MST)[p]While there may be some (very little) bioligical reason for this onslaught of cow tags, this is almost 100% political/social. It's not biological when the cattlemans association is whining and the farmers are whining about the elk eating their hay. Unless we consider somebodies hay field as some of our vital winter range.

And as far as "trusting the DWR biologists", I'm right there with berryblaster! #1 Fish Lake - not only once but almost twice. Issuing tags and then canceling the hunt last year because there really aren't as many elk as their "counts" said. #2 Plateau antelope - year after year after year they issue many tags and continue to pull goats off there to transplant. Then they issue tags last year for a doe hunt that they knew damn well they didn't have the antelope to supply the tags with. #3 - Wasatch Moose - For anybody that has hunted moose on the Wasatch, that herd is really hurting in numbers and has been for several years, yet we issued cow tags last year and now, somehow, we didn't feel comfortable issuing cow tags this year. So what changed in a year on moose? Dax, there is definately a trust issue. Don't you think it's warranted?


It's always an adventure!!!

 

[hossblur]

LOOKY HERE ME AN AWLB agreeing!!!

I will further this. Wildlife managment does not happen in a Lab. Most of us are outdoorsmen, meaning that we are in the hills year round. For that matter when I drive the highways I am always looking. We don't just show up for a week then disapear for a year. We see the animals while we are ice fishing, snowmobiling, hiking, camping, etc. While each DWR'er has his area, and most are quite vast, is is one or a small group. Compare that to the hundreds of us in that same area. So when we see counts, and we've spent time in the same areas looking at the same animals, those counts rarely jive, causing mistrust.

Now, the problems aren't quality or anterless, it is sheer numbers of deer, we don't have enough deer period, be they does, fawns, or bucks.

Remember, while we understand that wildlife does damage do farms, no doubt, I can't help but wonder how much. First, if these ranches have mtn. permits, then there should be no complaints, unless we are going to do studies on how much "damage"(eating weeds that are goin to die in the winter anyway) there livestock do and let ranchers pay for this on top of permit fees. Of those that are left, what do they do to stop the damage? If you have hay and the elk eat it year after year, perhaps a 10' fence around your stacks? The DWR would even pay for it, perhaps the dedicated guys could put it up? Unless you grow winter wheat, or have dedicated alfapha fields don't you disc your fields in the spring? If so how are wildlife doing damage to your fields? I watch all the time and see people who live right next to the ocean or river, then they get water logged, #####, moan, cry, collect insurance money, then do nothing to stop it from happening next year.

Because we are counting on ranchers to do honest accounting of damage and overstretched DWRers, we get these needs for antlerless and overtaging to protect ranches and farms. Seems like we can do a lot of work with the ranchers and farmers to "protect" them without eradicating deer/elk.

 

[nebo12000]

You need to remember also that the DWR has to live within a budget. They have some wiggle room because of a reserve fund they have in place, but for the most part they have to collect monies from sportsmen to fund the all of the various programs they have to run. Understanding that big game hunters are the only ones that they collect enough money from, to fund their portion of the budget. In fact, as I understand it,big game hunters monies are used to take care of a big portion of all the programs. Fishing license revenue, waterfowl etc etc do not collect enough to fund their own program. This being said, I do not believe that the DWR would purposely increase tag numbers just for the sake of increased revenue. I don't believe that they would purposely harm the resource anywhere.
It is my understanding that the Wasatch is problematic because of where the elk reside-- not if there are the number of elk they claim through aerial counts. In my opinion, efforts should be made to allow increased tags and hunting in those areas where the elk are "over populated". This is the same problem that has existed for years on the Nebo. The elk were there but just not on land that was accesible to hunters. No easy solution to this.Some private landowners choose to not allow hunting which in turn increases elk numbers on land that is unhuntable. Instead of being able to hunt a population of 10,000 elk (e.g), you may only be hunting a population of 8,000 elk because 2,000 elk are on non-huntable lands. Its an ongoing process and I know the DWR is doing what it can to get those properties opened to hunting on the Wasatch that are currently closed. I hope they haven't over done the antlerless tags on the Wasatch, but they have to get the herd numbers down. Its just too bad that they have to take most of them out of the herds that are on huntable lands and not on the lands where the elk numbers are a problem.
The fact is that on many of the units we are really only able to hunt 75-80% of the elk that reside there.

 

[hossblur]

Nebo, good point! One that hasn't been covered much. So again here we are with the ownership of the wildlife. If the landowner wants to claim that they are a nuisance and damage property and want compensation, that should come with access. We as sportsman shouldn't mind paying for damage IF we also get the oppurtunity to SOLVE the problem. In a lot of cases these landowners create there own problem, by stopping access they create sanctuarys. Whenever there is pressure, these animals will naturally seek out areas where there isn't. A few generations later and you have created migration patterns. Simply zoology, prey don't like predators. They will always avoid predators be they animal or human. Kill the lead cow for a generation or two and change the pattern. If the landowner doesn't want to solve the problem, and wants to threaten to irradicate the animals on his property, thats up to him, in doing so he would also change the pattern. While elk are a more recent problem(last 20yrs or so), most of these properties have had deer for 100's of years. In all that time very few ranchers have done anything to stop the damage. Every year the fences are smashed, hay is eaten etc., and the fence is fixed, the hay left out in the open, only to have it happen again and again.
If the landowner doesn't want to allow access, but simply doesn't want the elk, why not use these elk as trade? If they aren't huntable, are simply going to be killed, why not use these elk to trade for turkeys, sheep, fish, what ever. But again, if these ranchers have mtn. permits they should NEVER be compensated unless the acres they permit in the summer are audited every fall to see what "damage" there animals have done. My guess is a few smashed fences, and some hay would cost a lot less than stream rebuilding, predator control, etc. that goes with mtn. permits. And no, the permit fee doesn't come close to covering this, and most of us are fine with that because we support mtn. grazing as being part of western culture. There has to be a better way than what we have done for years, that apparently doesn't work or we wouldn't continually have the issue.

 

[Cam@strawberry]

If anyone listened to Steve Brown tonight, you know why I don't trust the Division.......

 

[AWHOLELOTTABULL]

Where can I listen again? I missed it


It's always an adventure!!!

 

[B_BOP_A_LU_LU]

Run in to a Guy at the SFW Banquet that was PIZZED,he said the DWR had been trading Our Moose for Birds?

Anybody know anything about this BS?

Moose in the NE Region are Struggling also!

But are they Struggling or getting traded?





For GAWDS Sakes Guys,We Got Kids on this Site,Some of them are 65 years Old!

I don't care if they're big or small!
If they throw lead I like em all!

 

[stillhunterman]

Geeze LULU, if the division got one bird for every moose pound, that might just be a good trade! Wonder if they were sparrows?

 

[awbmab]

I think that a couple of years ago they traded moose for turkeys.

 

[shelbys]

LAST EDITED ON May-14-11 AT 09:01AM (MST)[p]The trading of Big Game animals for birds isn't all that uncommon. I know Idaho did it back in the 90's. Trading Bull ELK for Turkeys. If my memory is correct, they were trading 1 for 1 with Kentucky I believe. Absolute horse sh** if you ask me!