Would you please point out where I said that the average commissioner is more qualified and you’re not?
I don’t think you blast wildlife, but I do think you’re pretty adept at blasting wildlife professionals, who, even if one disagrees with their methods or recommendations, don’t deserve to be trashed online or characterized as gaslighters, or of thinking “what they have now is the ‘best’ they’ve ever seen” (particularly when they write reports that literally say things like, “XX% below long-term average”). I highly doubt that field-staff at FWP wake up in the morning trying to decide who they’re going to bamboozle, or consciously want there to be no more public land elk or 4.5-year old mule deer. Unless of course as part of “giving things thought and trying to understand” you’ve had conversations (with an adequate sample of biologists of course) that have revealed such. If so, my apologies.
Perhaps instead of Gandhi, I should have used the “man in the arena” quote, and I say this knowing full well you have a history of being in the arena on complex and challenging wildlife conservation and public access issues. For that, thank you. Really. I also know a whole slew of FWP biologists that are “in the arena” trying to conserve and manage the resource appropriately, improve private land access, etc., regardless of the disconnect between what/how they do and how it’s perceived. From that history and your background, I’d hope you’d understand a little bit more about the depth and breadth in complexity and challenges that wildlife management and public service is growing into in MT. I won’t rehash all the issues, there’s 130+ pages of that here and elsewhere. What I get from your posts is that no matter what, FWP has all the wrong answers and you have all the right ones, and in your current role as a member of the public advocating for what you want (and thank you for that, too), FWP is so lost, and so corrupt(?), there needs to be a complete do-over. So, get in there and fix it, show them how it’s done, and deal with all the other sides of the public, too. If you don’t think that the current biologists and managers care about the health of the resource, be that change. I’d also like to be a fly on the wall when you try to tell that to said biologist or manager.
If you’d rather take management into your own hands by tossing two pronghorn tags a year, more power to you. I’ll cross my fingers those same two antelope aren’t harvested by someone else or otherwise killed/starved/eaten later on.
Criminy, the last 10 pages or more of this is criticizing FWP for not adequately managing mule deer, and here they are, after revamping AHM in 2021, reopening and completely redoing the entire state management plan for mule deer, again, less than four years later, largely due to public desire to see such (and absolutely yes, a need for it too). In this instance, FWP is literally doing what I feel like the purpose of this thread was initially for — to examine and revise mule deer management in Montana. It’s still going to be a long road ahead but isn’t that in itself kind of a win?
I think it’s great that you’re passionate Buzz, and holy cow I’d love to sit down and hear some undoubtedly awesome hunting stories from even when before I was born, when things were actually good. But I think your arguments and reasoning would be much more powerful (and likely taken much more seriously) if your approach was slightly different.
