New residents are definitely contributing to crowding. Like I said in post #238 this change redistributes NR hunters without decreasing the total number of tags. Some areas in Idaho had over 30% NR hunters. Combine that with an increasing resident population and you get more pressure. This change takes the NR portion of the pressure and sends it to different areas in the state. Resident crowding is an issue that will certainly become more an more of an issue and eventually will need to be addressed. In the end, residents should have priority.
In the unit where I live NR have been 30%+ of total hunter numbers. This change will reduce the number of NR by 50%. Overall that is ~600 fewer hunters in this unit. Those tags aren't eliminated, they are just designated to a different unit now. (A math breakdown: 30% NR means that the unit will be reduced to 15% NR with these quotas. 15% of the total number of hunters in the unit is ~600 tags)
Other units that historically have had only 5% NR participation will actually see an increase in NR hunting pressure up to 10%.
I do not think that any state should reduce Resident tag numbers in favor of NR. I would support a price increase for residents.
Like Brymoore has said this change came about due to Resident hunters opinions that there was too much NR pressure. I agree with him that most of the pressure is experienced by hunters that refuse to get off their lazy butts and actually hunt. However, it is also true that certain areas had more than their fair share of NR hunters.
It's frustrating but true that a lot of residents don't know the first thing about the hunting structure in Idaho. Many don't know that there are NR quotas at all and think that NR hunting is growing by the thousands every year. They prefer to ignorantly blame everything and their own failure to succeed on IDFG, wolves and NRs. Eventually, and hopefully not too soon, resident pressure will be the next thing to be addressed.