Competition grows to auction off coveted hunting tags

[Oak]

Competition grows to auction off coveted hunting tags

Eleven conservation organizations vied for the privilege to auction off five Montana hunting licenses on Thursday, the most applications ever received by the Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks for the tags.

“Typically in the past it’s one organization, or one or two,” said Sarah Clerget, chief legal counsel for the department. “We’ve never seen this many proposals to choose from before.”

 

[kansasdad]

Dolla dolla bill yo

 

[BoomerUSAF]

This is just the beginning with supply down and demand up!

 

[TheGrayRider]

A raffle to conduct the raffle. I like it!

 

[Schaaf]

Call me a radical but I believe any group that acquires a Governors tag should hold the auction event in the state and the 10% of proceeds should go to the chapter in that state.

WTF is CA WSF thinking they have a right to a governors tag?

 

[Deleted member 16014]

I didn't see Hush in that list, missed opportunity.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

Call me a radical but I believe any group that acquires a Governors tag should hold the auction event in the state and the 100% of proceeds should go to the chapter in that state.

WTF is CA WSF thinking they have a right to a governors tag?

Assume that was a typo, and totally agree.

 

[MtnElk]

Call me a radical but I believe any group that acquires a Governors tag should hold the auction event in the state and the 10% of proceeds should go to the chapter in that state.

WTF is CA WSF thinking they have a right to a governors tag?

this would be a damn good rule... how on earth could it be auctioned by a different state. So odd.

 

[Nameless Range]

Auction tags are gross, but I am pleasantly surprised that the commission is willing to try a different approach.

BHA will need the support of a lot of raffle/lottery buyers for the commission to repeat this in the future.

 

[TheTone]

I kinda like seeing the competition and MT bha doing it as a raffle vs. an auction. That said someone could probably buy enough tickets to basically guarantee themselves the tag. I’d love to see some commoner with a low number of tickets win it

 

[ismith]

Time to do away with these tags.

 

[Carnage2011]

Time to do away with these tags.

Why?

 

[ismith]

Why?

Because monetization is never good and I’d rather a grizzly or a wolf got the critter than an NGO in California.

 

[Carnage2011]

Because monetization is never good and I’d rather a grizzly or a wolf got the critter than an NGO in California.

That money provides a lot of benefit to some of these animals. We don’t sell enough sheep tags for them to support themselves. One auction tag per species isn’t hurting anything.

 

[Werty]

Because monetization is never good

Would you be willing to explain this more? I must be missing something.

 

[ismith]

That money provides a lot of benefit to some of these animals. We don’t sell enough sheep tags for them to support themselves. One auction tag per species isn’t hurting anything.

Very little benefit if any, and most likely not even in Montana. If you can show me otherwise you might change my mind, but as far as I’m concerned this is only an avenue for some well heeled bastard to cut ahead in the line.

 

[shb]

What's the use of being a well heeled bastard, If you can't cut in line?

 

[Nameless Range]

I suppose the discussions around the net-utility of auction tags are tired ones, but I like to hear myself talk too much, so here's some things I think about.

-The ability of these funds to compromise a conservation org. Is it unreasonable to assume that organizations who accept such large amounts of scratch, or just reputation-building, will think twice about crossing those who give it to them, which is certainly something conservation orgs must do sometimes? There’s contemporary examples of this.

- It lets folks think a problem is being addressed when it’s not clear it is. Instead of relying on this kind of annual plutocratic theatre, we should fund conservation appropriately, or at least better, within public systems that exist or need to. I know slippery slope arguments are often bullshit, but one sheep tag ain’t that much and two wouldn’t be much more but would bring in twice the dough. Then three. Utah is a great example of auction tags gone off the rails.

- Is money the problem? @Bambistew has made some pretty compelling takes over the years highlighting how it’s not obvious that more money brings the results we think it does.


-Lastly, for me it’s an erosion - a further abandonment of a tenet of the NAM, that if we held sacred, would simply quash a hundred of the problems and concerns of the vast majority of hunters – that being equal opportunity in the drawing process. If folks treated that premise with same zeal we treat others in the world , we could really get down to business.

A while back, Hal Herring’s excellent article on Jim Posewitz, “A Giant’s Shoes To Fill”, was making the rounds. When I read about a person spending tens, or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a f$@*ing mule deer tag, I hear Jim's quote, which was in reference to captive elk and deer, but for me, it fits here.

“The worst crime is that it prostitutes and trivializes both hunting and wild game animals.”


To be clear, I don’t have a lot of personal heartache over Montana’s auction tags. There’s bigger fish to fry, and of the hunting-related concerns I have they don’t break the top ten, just that if I were starting fresh I think I’d leave em out of the picture.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Very little benefit if any, and most likely not even in Montana. If you can show me otherwise you might change my mind, but as far as I’m concerned this is only an avenue for some well heeled bastard to cut ahead in the line.

90% of the money from an auction tag is given to FWP to use for managing that species. 10% goes to the conservation org for expenses. Nearly all of the money stays in state.

 

[BackofBeyond]

Watch The Duke on YouTube and tell me auction tags are a good thing.