hey Straight Arrow

[Nemont]

I thought you said only one side of politics is a threat to hunters?

here is a "conservationist" who says legal hunting does more harm then poaching and he isn't just some Joe off the street nut job. He is president of the California Fish and Game Commission.

If fear conservationist with the ME, ME, ME attitude as much as I fear developers. For the sake of a "ME" attitude that you seemingly endorse because you believe it's embraced by only one side of the issue. That I find amusing and interestingly foreign to my logic set.


http://www.outdoornewsservice.com/i...ael-sutton-fgc-president-calls-hunting-not-su
stainable&Itemid=69....I

Nemont

 

[Straight Arrow]

No, I agree with you. The "ME" attitude is rampant ... all political parties, races, cultures, creeds ... everywhere. That is why it is so difficult to effectively protect those values that are being attacked.

The crazy thing is that nationally the Dems are threatening hunting, gun rights, and some access. Repubs are threatening to sell off public lands and push private ownership to the max.

In Montana, the Dems are more like the Repubs of yesteryear and the Repubs have recently been unfriendly to sportsmen and wildlife. It's a complex world.

I may have expressed that in Montana, Republicans have been unfriendly to hunters, but overall both parties are a problem. It's just that in Montana there seem to be more Democrats supporting sportsmen, wildlife, and access issues.

 

[shoots-straight]

"I actually believe legal hunting that's not sustainable may be a more pervasive problem in California," said Sutton during the web conference, according to a story on KCET's web site.

I'm 100% in agreement with this statement. He could actually be speaking about Montana.

In Montana specifically there's a couple of Hunting districts I"ve been working on (331, and 332 the Pioneer's). There's evidence that we are going to hunt ourselves down to oblivion there.

The trend counts for these areas are already below objective, and headed steeply downward. The Bio that's in charge there has grouped these two HD's with one that has more elk than the objective and then issued 550 B tags for those HD's. So we have a whole ecosystem that's below objectives, mostly public lands, and we are going to have a 5 week long season with 550 B tags that will be good there.

Oh did I say that the southern district he lumped the Pioneers too had a large harbored elk herd that put that HD over? No? Neither did that Bio. Page 55 of the EMP should be invoked and those harbored elk removed from the objective and a more restrictive season structure put in place to bring our public game back.

I talked deer with this Bio briefly and was told the moose are competing with the mule deer by over grazing the mountain mahogany. Oh and that area wasn't really good for mule deer anyway. It's criminal how low those deer numbers are now.

I talked with a couple sportsman leaders, of other groups in the area. One said he wanted his cow, and opportunity to get one. The other guy said he was against the B tags, but still wanted opportunity available. So we will have a 5 week rilfe season that will have 550 b tags for elk that don't exist. The first guy complained that a hunting district by him (that was mostly private) had too little bull:cow ratios and wanted that fixed. Crazy! He has an area that is most accessible, huge amounts of public, but want his cow opportunity left there. Then an area that has little access, with no public lands, wanted restrictions to bring the bull ratio's up.

Wow is all I thought.

One guy claimed that (we Rooters) were permitting ourselves to death. I said "Do you just keep on hunting them down to zero"? He claimed that there was too many Rooters in those Big Hole hunting districts because we went more restrictive. The problem with his statements was I had already looked at the hunter days in those areas and sense the populations of elk nose dived the opportunity he was clamoring about actually disappeared. There's half the hunter days compared to 5 or 6 years ago. That's lost opportunity in my book. Sure you could go hunt there if you choose to, but do you want to hunt just for the scenery? Those areas should be managed by the min numbers of harvest and even the Elk Management Plan says they should be in a restrictive season structure.

Gentlemen and ladies, we are by far our own worst enemies.

 

[Straight Arrow]

There it is again. The "ME" attitude ... at the expense of wise management of the resource.

 

[shoots-straight]

Sutton's statements might not mean what I feel they should. Coming from California, it's usually opposite.

 

[Nemont]

I suspect you are wanting to improve hunting opportunity, to do what is best and right for the resource and to provide a framework to make sure the future of hunting is brighter.

I don't think that is the goal of Mr. Sutton and things he is talking to the HSUS about.

Pretty big difference.

Nemont

 

[jryoung]

I submitted a request for Sutton's statement because out of context it looks terrible. Layer that on with Sutton's conflict of interest surrounding his position with the Audubon Society and it looks really really bad. At the F&G Commission meeting last week he declined to comment regarding the potential conflict.

As a former auditor, and one who was held to strict standards of independence by the SEC in both appearance and form I would hope the Commission would formally address this.....at least I hope they address my question.

 

[shoots-straight]

I suspect you are wanting to improve hunting opportunity, to do what is best and right for the resource and to provide a framework to make sure the future of hunting is brighter.

I don't think that is the goal of Mr. Sutton and things he is talking to the HSUS about.

Pretty big difference.

Nemont

That's why I posted #5 18 minutes earlier than your post. It usually has a totally
different meaning coming from the Republic of California than here.

Still we are more of a threat to our own existance from within than the HSUS is. IMO.

Most of the Hunting shows are doing us a disservice too. They are portraying us in a bad light to the 80% that haven't made up their minds. There are a few exceptions to that. Randy's shows are above the rest.

I still agree with his statement. If totally a different meaning.

 

[katqanna]

Shoots-Straight, I know what you are talking about. That is exactly what I found through data this spring when I pulled up the 2013 elk winter counts and mapped them. Here is a map I created, using the elk hunting districts map with the DSA. I took the 2013 elk winter count chart and calculated baseline 0. Everything under 0 I highlighted. Any HD just about 0, but less than 100 I noted, just to see if there were connections to HD that were under 0. Granted, some of these herds move around a bit, but this shows the islands of under 0 connected Hunt Districts, especially those here in the DSA. Then I pulled up land ownership maps to see what was where and most of these white areas are private lands, with the yellow being predominately where public lands occur.

I couldnt use the FWP map because they use a plus and minus margin, creating multiple colors that obscured the pattern.