When it’s not actually population management; Or, the lies we tell ourselves and how to fix them.

[wombat13]

Well see this is where I differ because I think that European management styles do a better job of managing populations overall. A lot of those countries have very strong hunting cultures that have been around for much longer than the US has even been around and they look at populations holistically. I am unconvinced that wildlife management units actually worked that well as management units.I’m not an expert and I don’t pretend to think that the DEC doesn’t have experts because they absolutely do but it just seems to me that what they’re doing isn’t working.

"...they look at populations holistically." What does that mean? I'm familiar with definition of the word, but it is a word that is often used as a way to dodge specifics. What exactly do the euros do differently and why do you think it is better than managing at a WMU level? State wide won't work because of variation in habitat, climate, human population density, etc.

 

[wombat13]

And see I guess that’s where my leftist leanings come in because I understand and I appreciate and I want private land someday but I also think that something needs to change about the way game is managed on private land’s for the good of the population as a whole.

Do you not recognize the irony that you are complaining that NY state isn't doing things right (and actually has some unspecified ulterior motive driving their actions) and now you are arguing for the state to have MORE power over game on private land? By the way, NY regulates all game whether it is on private land or not. All game and hunting related regulations apply to private land. Or are you arguing that the state should be able to force me to allow hunters on my property?

 

[wombat13]

Many of your ideas already work quite well in other states, BUT alas due to the political geography of your situation:

View attachment 973694


LD

Which ideas specifically work well in other states? The proposals outlined by OP would be a disaster in certain parts of the state. He hunts in two management units that are among the top in deer population density. What might work better there would be terrible 2 hours southwest. That's exactly why the state has to be divided into management units that allow for different management based on local conditions.

 

[daniel craig]

"...they look at populations holistically." What does that mean? I'm familiar with definition of the word, but it is a word that is often used as a way to dodge specifics. What exactly do the euros do differently and why do you think it is better than managing at a WMU level? State wide won't work because of variation in habitat, climate, human population density, etc.

I mean I think we have to look at New York State as one wildlife management unit is a state with a population of deer versus wildlife management units.

I have relatives who live in the Bavarian state in Germany and according to them the way the state looks at the deer population is that there are deer in this state and the population needs managing. Hunts are based around state population as opposed to population. The herd of deer isn’t the herd in this one town or the next it’s a herd of deer in the state. The way I understand it is there a look at what’s the most efficient way to reduce the population if it’s too large. I could be taking their explanation wrong so if there’s any Germans in here and I want to correct me on that, let me know.

But I think what we could do is maximize hunting opportunities and incentives. Everybody gets a double tag or two it can be used anywhere in the state.

 

[daniel craig]

Do you not recognize the irony that you are complaining that NY state isn't doing things right (and actually has some unspecified ulterior motive driving their actions) and now you are arguing for the state to have MORE power over game on private land? By the way, NY regulates all game whether it is on private land or not. All game and hunting related regulations apply to private land. Or are you arguing that the state should be able to force me to allow hunters on my property?

That’s a deep political discussion that probably will end up getting this thread blocked so I’d rather not go into it here.

 

[wombat13]

I mean I think we have to look at New York State as one wildlife management unit is a state with a population of deer versus wildlife management units.

I have relatives who live in the Bavarian state in Germany and according to them the way the state looks at the deer population is that there are deer in this state and the population needs managing. Hunts are based around state population as opposed to population. The herd of deer isn’t the herd in this one town or the next it’s a herd of deer in the state. The way I understand it is there a look at what’s the most efficient way to reduce the population if it’s too large. I could be taking their explanation wrong so if there’s any Germans in here and I want to correct me on that, let me know.

But I think what we could do is maximize hunting opportunities and incentives. Everybody gets a double tag or two it can be used anywhere in the state.

I still don't understand why you think this would better manage deer populations. I've seen research more than once that indicates that a typical deer spends most of it's life in about 1 square mile (640 acres). The deer population in Farmington (WMU 8H) and the actions required to manage that population are completely irrelevant to deer population and the actions required to manage the deer population 85 miles away in Olean (9T).

 

[wombat13]

That’s a deep political discussion that probably will end up getting this thread blocked so I’d rather not go into it here.

That sounds like a "yes" to my question.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Which ideas specifically work well in other states? That's exactly why the state has to be divided into management units that allow for different management based on local conditions.

Which are part of the state in which he hunts. My comment includes "in other states"..... so these are what work in some other states, mine for one example...,

0.) Reduce the cost of a license and tags: When you buy a license you automatically get a DOE tag that’s useable anywhere in the state.
The cost of a basic hunting license in Maryland is nominal, and you can take either antlered or antlerless deer. IF you wanted to take a second antlered deer, you need to pay an extra $10.00 fee.

2.) Change the seasons:
- 2a.) Make the bow season the month of September and the first two weeks of October.
Maryland's bow season starts in September, and you may use the bow in the rifle season or the muzzleloader season.
- 2b.) Make the rifle/shotgun season the last two weeks of October, and the entire month of November.
Maryland being farther South the rut starts a bit later, so we start rifles/shotguns (or if you prefer, muzzleloaders) the two weeks after Thanksgiving, and then three days in January as well.
- 2c.) Make the late bow/muzzleloader season the entire month of December.
Our Muzzleloader season is the last two weeks of December, plus a primitive season that starts Feb 1st for three days, where you have to use either an old school rifle like my flintlock or a sidelock caplock or a recurve bow. We also get an early week for Muzzleloader in October. Archery runs until the last day of January
- 2d.) leave room for a January/February or March hunt if the regular season hunt harvest were too low.
I just pointed out that we have set seasons that are open regardless of the hunt harvest in January and February.

5.) Any and all municipal parks over a certain acreage have to allow hunting of some kind, even if it’s just bow season (regulations allowing for skill testing are allowed).
We have special hunts in certain parks, some are muzzleloader only, and archers are also allowed to hunt in areas of private land within the "no shoot zone" provided they are up in a tree stand, and the location has been inspected and the angle of shooting is downwards enough to keep things "safe".

LD

 

[caribou]

It dosent have to be "population control" to be delicious.

 

[Rembrandt]

What works in one State.....should stay in that State. Well meaning researchers and bureaucrats are the primary bunglers of mountains of failed regulations all over the country.

To stay on topic we''ll confine the illustration to wildlife management. I'll use my home State of Iowa, least amount of public hunting land anywhere in the Nation....why? because the land is so valuable for agriculture it's all been bought up to grow more money (ie: crops). Private property rights rule the land and until the Supreme Court says the Government can let anyone hunt peoples private property because "the State can manage the wildlife populations better" is basically a socialistic theory.

Add to it that basing wildlife quotas on what happened the year or two before has flaws beyond imagination. God controls the weather, and man fails to predict it in a computer model. In 2020 Iowa was on track to have the best crop year ever.....until......a "derecho" wiped out 1/3 of it. How does the researchers model for wildlife food sources account for the effects on herds and populations. Use the same thing only insert record snow, a wet spring, or a drought year? Think weather isn't a factor?......suppose there's blizzards three weekends in a row. not unheard of......did I mention that all three blizzards fall on the only three available weekends that gun season is open. It actually happened several years ago, hardly any hunters went out because of inclement weather.

Only fools believe they can alter a date here and there, change a method of take, or financially punish people into submission to achieve their utopian perfect hunting season. Unfortunately the hunting picture they see is like looking through a piece of PVC tube and failing to see the bigger panoramic picture over time.

 

[Chuck R.]

I still don't understand why you think this would better manage deer populations. I've seen research more than once that indicates that a typical deer spends most of it's life in about 1 square mile (640 acres). The deer population in Farmington (WMU 8H) and the actions required to manage that population are completely irrelevant to deer population and the actions required to manage the deer population 85 miles away in Olean (9T).

I've hunted in Germany and Austria, and my FIL is a retired Forstmeister (think forest manager), who worked hand in hand with several Jagermeisters (not the drink, a professional hunter). I think they do a better job of "managing" their herds, but it's a much, much, more hands on approach of inventorying, grading, and deciding what that parcel of land can support.

They have parcels that are managed by the what we would consider to be "professional hunters" that inventory the game, report to the "state" where it's decided what can be harvested, not only by numbers, but by age/quality. I've gotten to spend time with PHs at their feed stations when they've basically been taking inventory and like any other Teutonic endeavor they are thorough when it comes to record keeping. I've been on hunts that were free, or nearly so, for lower class animals that my FIL arranged because IF I didn't shoot the animal (which was picked out for me by the PH), the PH would have to kill it in order to be in compliance. Most of the hunts went to clients of teh company that owned/leased the land and company executives on that area. Then the meat went to a special butcher store and was sold. That money went back to the land owner to support the PH, stand maintenance, roads, feed programs etc. Unlike the states, the game belongs to the land owner, but the state does manage or dictate what can/must be harvested.

I think some may view this as a way to get access, cause "X" number of animals must be harvested per year to maintain a balance between numbers and what the land can support. I really can't imagine an American hunters expression though when a big 12pt walks by and the PH reminds him "that one's not for you".

 

[buck460XVR]

What works in one State.....should stay in that State. Well meaning researchers and bureaucrats are the primary bunglers of mountains of failed regulations all over the country.

Maybe yes and maybe no. Many states take what is learned from the experience of one state and apply it to their regulations......CWD management is one example. Back in the seventies when many mid-western states first reintroduced Wild Turkeys, they went off the experience of other states when it came to implementing regulations for their initial hunting seasons. Things like Blaze Orange and Hunter Safety courses started with a few states and bloomed as other states saw the positive impact they made. Many of the bungled regulations I saw here in my state were a well-meaning attempt at making a positive change in hunting. Some times it failed because the idea was not thought out, and sometimes it failed because hunters would not accept it. IMHO, I don't see a whole lot of significant differences between states other than bag limits and length/dates of seasons. While there are some small differences in legal weapons and methods, many times because of safety and/or tradition, for the most part, it all comes down to being a safe and responsible hunter. While I hear a lot of folks whine about the DNR here in Wisconsin, for the most part, hunting and fishing is still great and in the case of deer and Wild Turkeys, better than back in the "good ol' days"!

 

[wombat13]

Which are part of the state in which he hunts. My comment includes "in other states"..... so these are what work in some other states, mine for one example...,

0.) Reduce the cost of a license and tags: When you buy a license you automatically get a DOE tag that’s useable anywhere in the state.
The cost of a basic hunting license in Maryland is nominal, and you can take either antlered or antlerless deer. IF you wanted to take a second antlered deer, you need to pay an extra $10.00 fee.

Wombat13: I don't know what nominal is exactly, but NY is pretty similar. Regular season license is $22 in NY and that gets you buck tag for gun season. Bow license is $15 in NY and that gets you an either sex tag and bow privilege. Bow season begins Oct 1. So for $37 (cost of two cases of Yuengling cans) you can hunt from October 1 to second Sunday in December and take two deer (two bucks or buck and doe). You can use the bow in the entire big game season. For another $10 you can add ML, which allows an additional 10 days after gun season and allows use of crossbow for two weeks at the beginning of November.

The real issue here is that OP thinks that all of NY state has an overpopulation of deer. As I've explained already this is not reality. Here are a couple of snippets from DEC deer management reports:

"WMU 8H includes parts of Livingston, Monroe, and Ontario Counties and has a limited amount of public land accessible for hunting at Honeoye Creek Wildlife Management Area and Rush Oak Openings Unique Area. This is a typical Lake Plains unit with an ideal mix of habitat resulting in large, healthy deer and a productive population. 67% of the land is agricultural and 16% is forested. 2019 Total Deer Take = 11.4 deer per sqmi."

"WMU 9T is in Cattaraugus County and contains a small amount of public hunting access, primarily in its northwestern portions. The unit is mainly forested, though a few small family farms are interspersed across the landscape. As in neighboring units in the extreme southern tier, 9T buck harvests have remained low for many years. Large reductions in antlerless permits in 2015 and 2016 along with increased fawn recruitment from milder winters, may have set the deer population in this unit on an increasing trajectory. 11% of the land is agricultural and 78% is forest. 2019 Total Deer Take = 5.0 deer per sqmi."

Comparing state wide regulation in Maryland to state wide regulation in NY doesn't really make sense. MD has about 20% of the land area as NY or about the same land area as Adirondack State Park. Most of the state is within 75 miles of Baltimore. The max N-S distance is a little over 100 miles vs. 300 miles in NY. These just aren't comparable geographically. /Wombat13

2.) Change the seasons:
- 2a.) Make the bow season the month of September and the first two weeks of October.
Maryland's bow season starts in September, and you may use the bow in the rifle season or the muzzleloader season.
- 2b.) Make the rifle/shotgun season the last two weeks of October, and the entire month of November.
Maryland being farther South the rut starts a bit later, so we start rifles/shotguns (or if you prefer, muzzleloaders) the two weeks after Thanksgiving, and then three days in January as well.
- 2c.) Make the late bow/muzzleloader season the entire month of December.
Our Muzzleloader season is the last two weeks of December, plus a primitive season that starts Feb 1st for three days, where you have to use either an old school rifle like my flintlock or a sidelock caplock or a recurve bow. We also get an early week for Muzzleloader in October. Archery runs until the last day of January
- 2d.) leave room for a January/February or March hunt if the regular season hunt harvest were too low.
I just pointed out that we have set seasons that are open regardless of the hunt harvest in January and February.

Wombat13: Most of the above is just longer/different seasons. That would be fine, in the areas where there is an abundance of deer. OP wants longer seasons and higher doe takes for the entire state. /Wombat 13

5.) Any and all municipal parks over a certain acreage have to allow hunting of some kind, even if it’s just bow season (regulations allowing for skill testing are allowed).
We have special hunts in certain parks, some are muzzleloader only, and archers are also allowed to hunt in areas of private land within the "no shoot zone" provided they are up in a tree stand, and the location has been inspected and the angle of shooting is downwards enough to keep things "safe".

Wombat13: Many parks have hunting. Decision is made by whichever gov is in charge of the park. OP wants the state to force local governments to allow hunting whether the local community wants it or not. Why should the state make the decision instead of the local community. The negative impacts of deer over populations (vehicle collisions, etc.) are borne by the local community, so why not let them decide? /Wombat13
LD

I've included detailed comments in the quote above. Short version is that OP wants state wide regulation rather than based on units. Although MD does this, it's not really comparable. MD is 1/5 the size of NY. MD is about the size of NY's biggest state park!

 

[wombat13]

To stay on topic we''ll confine the illustration to wildlife management. I'll use my home State of Iowa, least amount of public hunting land anywhere in the Nation....why? because the land is so valuable for agriculture it's all been bought up to grow more money (ie: crops). Private property rights rule the land and until the Supreme Court says the Government can let anyone hunt peoples private property because "the State can manage the wildlife populations better" is basically a socialistic theory.

The OP has already stated he is a leftist. He would likely be fine with SCOTUS mandating access to private land. If that happened, the state can have it. Why should I pay thousands of $ per year in property tax when I don't have control? I'll just hunt that land anyway or somebody else's land that is forced to accept me.

Add to it that basing wildlife quotas on what happened the year or two before has flaws beyond imagination. God controls the weather, and man fails to predict it in a computer model..

I understand your point, but there isn't any other practical way. Populations can't be managed on a year to year basis; more like decade to decade basis. There will be ups and downs, but the long run trajectory can be altered. As an example, the deer herd in NY along the PA border was in pretty good shape until a truly horrible winter in the early 2000s. It's taken nearly 20 years, but its getting better. It may take another 10 years before it is back to where it was.

 

[buck460XVR]

Short version is that OP wants state wide regulation rather than based on units. Although MD does this, it's not really comparable. MD is 1/5 the size of NY. MD is about the size of NY's biggest state park!

Yep.......and management within smaller areas dependent on access and herd density makes more sense than blanket bag and season limits. Where deer populations are low and hunter pressure is high, you cannot give out infinite antlerless permits. In areas where populations are high and and pressure/access low, you can give infinite permits and a year round season and you still will not get the population within goals set by wildlife managers. Just how it is. Back when Wisconsin first attempted a "earn a buck" to reduce populations in high density areas, those landowners just went to the nearest public land area to take their does(Lord knows they didn't want to shoot theirs) because the public and private management areas were considered the same. This decimated deer populations on public lands and did nuttin' at all to reduce herd numbers on private lands. It was a live and learn thing. Now antlerless permit numbers are different for public and private land, even tho we do not have the "earn a buck" system anymore.....as they should be.

 

[wombat13]

I've hunted in Germany and Austria, and my FIL is a retired Forstmeister (think forest manager), who worked hand in hand with several Jagermeisters (not the drink, a professional hunter). I think they do a better job of "managing" their herds, but it's a much, much, more hands on approach of inventorying, grading, and deciding what that parcel of land can support.

They have parcels that are managed by the what we would consider to be "professional hunters" that inventory the game, report to the "state" where it's decided what can be harvested, not only by numbers, but by age/quality. I've gotten to spend time with PHs at their feed stations when they've basically been taking inventory and like any other Teutonic endeavor they are thorough when it comes to record keeping. I've been on hunts that were free, or nearly so, for lower class animals that my FIL arranged because IF I didn't shoot the animal (which was picked out for me by the PH), the PH would have to kill it in order to be in compliance. Most of the hunts went to clients of teh company that owned/leased the land and company executives on that area. Then the meat went to a special butcher store and was sold. That money went back to the land owner to support the PH, stand maintenance, roads, feed programs etc. Unlike the states, the game belongs to the land owner, but the state does manage or dictate what can/must be harvested.

I think some may view this as a way to get access, cause "X" number of animals must be harvested per year to maintain a balance between numbers and what the land can support. I really can't imagine an American hunters expression though when a big 12pt walks by and the PH reminds him "that one's not for you".

This is very interesting information. On the one hand, I can see the advantage in managing deer on a much smaller scale than NY does. I mentioned earlier in the thread that my land has plenty of deer because it was logged about 10 years ago and neighboring properties have been logged more recently. This offers plenty of browse for the deer, unlike much of the management unit my land is in. So we are stuck without many doe permits because those are issued based on the whole unit. On the other hand, I can't imagine the expense of inventorying and documenting the deer as you describe. I'm liking NY's approach better now.

 

[Chuck R.]

This is very interesting information. On the one hand, I can see the advantage in managing deer on a much smaller scale than NY does. I mentioned earlier in the thread that my land has plenty of deer because it was logged about 10 years ago and neighboring properties have been logged more recently. This offers plenty of browse for the deer, unlike much of the management unit my land is in. So we are stuck without many doe permits because those are issued based on the whole unit. On the other hand, I can't imagine the expense of inventorying and documenting the deer as you describe. I'm liking NY's approach better now.

This is pretty much the crux of it, their system is manpower intensive, and their training/education standards by far, far, exceed ours. But as I've said in other posts about the German system, the average joe doesn't head to Walmart, buy a license/tag and go hunting, their system is not really set up for average folks as there's a lot of hurdles and gates to get through before one gets to hunt. Numbers of hunters here are already dwindling, IMHO, IF you want to see a really rapid decline enact the German system here.

 

[wombat13]

This is pretty much the crux of it, their system is manpower intensive, and their training/education standards by far, far, exceed ours. But as I've said in other posts about the German system, the average joe doesn't head to Walmart, buy a license/tag and go hunting, their system is not really set up for average folks as there's a lot of hurdles and gates to get through before one gets to hunt. Numbers of hunters here are already dwindling, IMHO, IF you want to see a really rapid decline enact the German system here.

NY does offer an option for something similar to what you describe. If one or more landowners with 1,000 contiguous acres agree to manage the property as a whole, NY DEC will work with him/them to develop a management plan for that property. This is a pretty good approach. 640 acres is a square mile, so 1,000 acres will contain a deer population in which many of the deer will not travel far from the property (or at all). One can really start to manage a herd at that size, but likely not any smaller than that.

 

[entropy]

Numbers of hunters here are already dwindling, IMHO, IF you want to see a really rapid decline enact the German system here.

Don't be posting that! Like 1984, they'll take that as a plan, not a warning.

 

[yeongjo]

We as hunters...

In my state of NY

Thank You GOD I no longer live in New York State.
It is people like you, best intentions in mind, that have destroyed NY State.
Having never had to hunt for actual food, which you eat, to survive.
I am so happy I left the State never to ever return.
While you are are creating your nice little understandable regulations, why not make a plastic hula hoop everyone must jump through.
Having grown up in Sullivan, Delaware and Wayne County, Pennsylvania hunting was a way of life, when I used to go to high school with a Winchester 30-30 in a gun rack in my gun rack truck window in the senior high school parking lot and a 12 loaded gauge shotgun in the trunk for early morning hunting.
My great grandfather must have shot one of the very last Moose outside his little cabin on the Delaware River in Narrowsburg, NY.

When I was a young man of 17. I once shot a deer with a 12 gauge shotgun, loaded with 00 buck, maybe 150 yards away, whoop dee do, lets see if I hit it, a single 00 pellet struck it in the head. We (my family) went from being hungry to not being hungry.

 

[Barbaroja]

We as hunters, like to make the claim that hunting is an important tool for managing populations. We like to use the science of environmental carrying capacity/load, Fecundity etc.

In my state of NY, for deer, hunting is far from a population management tool we like to claim it is.

So, this past season in the “southern” zone, bow season started 1October and runs to 20November (inclusive).
Regular season is from 21Nov to 13Dec (inclusive).
Late bow/muzzleloader 14Dec-22Dec (inclusive).

When you buy your big game license you automatically get a “buck tag” but antlerless deer tags are based on availability in the management unit (arbitrary zones) you hunt. Some places have ton available and some have none. In THEORY the number of doe tags available is based on population size in that area, based on observation and the previous year harvest.

In many places tags go unused for many reasons. There are areas with a plethora of deer that don’t get hunted.
.......................…………………......................

Now, in my mind, if we really wanted to manage the populations, here’s what we’d do:

0.) Reduce the cost of a license and tags.

1.) When you buy a license you automatically get a DOE tag that’s useable anywhere in the state. Buck tags are ONLY issued if you’ve already harvested a doe.

2.) Change the seasons:
- 2a.) Make the bow season the month of September and the first two weeks of October.
—2a1.) Allow crossbows the entire season.
- 2b.) Make the rifle/shotgun season the last two weeks of October, and the entire month of November.
- 2c.) Make the late bow/muzzleloader season the entire month of December.
- 2d.) leave room for a January/February or March hunt if the regular season hunt harvest were too low.

5.) Any and all municipal parks over a certain acreage have to allow hunting of some kind, even if it’s just bow season (regulations allowing for skill testing are allowed).

6.) All private land over a certain acreage will have a portion of that next year’s property tax waived if they have a certain number of non related hunters (based on acreage) hunt their land.
——Property tax waivers based on number of DIFFERENT hunters per acre size (the more hunters you have the more property tax you can waive, up to 65%) and tags used, allowing the property owners to let hunters use any nuisance tags the property owner might have.

7.) Make venison donation and sale easier for hunters to do so the trophy hunters can donate the doe meat they may not want, provided they drop the deer off at a licensed deer processor (to ensure meat quality/health).

BONUS/OPTIONAL

7.) Municipalities will receive tax incentives to allow hunters to bow hunt areas normally off limits (those areas behind rural schools).

8.) Colleges with adequate space will receive additional funding from the state for allowing on campus hunting

Now correct me if I’m wrong but are you a wildlife biologist or some similar environmental scientists?
How much time have you spent researching how various environmental factors ( weather, cover, food, predators, hunting pressure) effects deer populations?

My guess is no and little to none. Based on that why do you think you could do it better than the folks who have spent years in school and the field dedicating their entire careers to it?

This sounds like a bit of the dunning-Kruger effect in action.

 

[daniel craig]

Now correct me if I’m wrong but are you a wildlife biologist or some similar environmental scientists?
How much time have you spent researching how various environmental factors ( weather, cover, food, predators, hunting pressure) effects deer populations?

Without giving away too much information… part of my job is working with wildlife biologist to understand local game populations, analyzing data over multiple years, half decades and decades, taking environmental factors into consideration to create hunting regulations based around that data.

 

[Barbaroja]

Without giving away too much information… part of my job is working with wildlife biologist to understand local game populations, analyzing data over multiple years, half decades and decades, taking environmental factors into consideration to create hunting regulations based around that data.

That’s great. Please don’t take my last post as being hostile, just purely a question as there are a lot of people these days taking about things they have absolutely no clue about.

that said I still think that management areas are better for the animals than blanket state regulations on management. I also do not think that reducing fees for hunting as that is the money used to support and protect the states wildlife.

 

[daniel craig]

That’s great. Please don’t take my last post as being hostile, just purely a question as there are a lot of people these days taking about things they have absolutely no clue about.

that said I still think that management areas are better for the animals than blanket state regulations on management. I also do not think that reducing fees for hunting as that is the money used to support and protect the states wildlife.

Well I would definitely be for reducing fees to increase access to the pursuit even if it means Restructuring the budget to compensate.

 

[wombat13]

Well I would definitely be for reducing fees to increase access to the pursuit even if it means Restructuring the budget to compensate.

I wonder how much the license cost is a barrier. It's $37 for bow and regular season license. That's equal to two cases of cheap beer, or 4 to 5 lunches at McDonald's. Pack a lunch for a week rather than getting fast food and you've covered the cost of the license. That $37 allows hunting from October 1 to just before Christmas. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

To analyze it we'd have to know the elasticity of demand. How much will licenses sold increase for a given percentage decrease in license price? That would allow a comparison of the tradeoffs. How much less money for conservation vs. how many more people able to hunt.