If we are going to improve the plight of the mule deer we must begin to manage biologically...not by popular opinion....wildlife managment should not be a popularity contest. This may mean that we must give up something to attain a greater good for the resource...something has to give if we are going to see a healthy structure of our mule deer herds in Montana....I look at it this way...I could not manage a ranch in SE, SW, NW, Montana the way I manage the ranch here in NE Mt....just does not work... wildlife is no different..this is a very diverse state, there should be very diverse management approaches w/ wildlife, as the deer here in NE Mt face different issues than the ones in SW Mt....yet our state is pretty much blanket managed(excepting a few LE areas)......to me it's a funny thing, prior to the winter of 2010 I would see more antlelope here in Reg. 6 than I did mule deer...and antelope are on a permit?? I am not advocating a permit system, but eventually we will be there, as a finite resource can not handle infinite pressure. I want to stave off the permits as long as we can...but in order to do that we must be PRO-ACTIVE in managment.
Eric - I agree with everything in that post.
So, in our part of the state, public land habitat improvement is going to be the biggest game changer. In your part of the state, it seems habitat improvement on private lands is going to be the big issue.
From the hunter side, I will be the first to admit, there is no consensus from our side, as to what is the problem. Ask 100 hunters and you get 25 different answers as to what they see as a problem and you get 100 different answers to what they see as the solution.
Seems the outfitter community is not too different in their inability to find a common voice, either. I hear you talking about biology and herd management, which I agree with, then I read Paul Ellis promoting all the phony economic issues related to archery elk hunting that have nothing to do with biology, rather are counter to the biology. Add to that the MOGA sponsored bills and their legislative friends introducing bills to again raise non-resident permit numbers even higher, when I think we all agree that more pressure is not the solution, and most likely not at all a biologic-based idea.
Point being, the state is diverse as you mention. And, as much as one would think the hunters would all be on the same page and the outfitters would all be on the same page, that is just not the case.
If I was King for a day, the solution would look a lot different. We would raise resident fees and start acquiring/using the best biological data to accomplish what the majority of hunters, guided or unguided, want as the final outcome. We would eliminate a lot of doe tags, possibly restricting mule hunting in some areas until population objectives were met. Not for the sake of growing big deer, but for the sake of having a healthy abundant herd of diverse age classes.
Most every Block Management cooperator would be encouraged to have walk-in only hunting. Only the main arterial roads on large public land areas would be open during the November rut. I would decouple the non-resident big game combo license and make it a deer or an elk license, not both. I would try to redirect harvest more towards whitetails in areas where they can withstand it (cental/east) and protect them more in areas where they cannot (west/northwest).
I would invest more habitat money in areas currently in limited entry to measure the results of habitat improvement in a more controlled setting as is the case of these limited units. Before I went to more limited hunting, I would learn what is, or is not, working in those units.
I would get rid of mountain lion quotas and lion trophy areas, protecting lion numbers nothing more than a female subquota needed to prevent a lawsuit that we are shooting too many cats. In order to grow a trophy tom, we need to have a very large lion population, which requires a lot of deer served up as feed.
I would NOT have the state do any predator control, whether lions, coyotes or wolves. If hunters are concerned about predation, then we need to get off our collective asses and do something about it. I would allocate money to other programs that will have lasting effect.
Predator control compared to habitat conservation is like renting a house versus buying a house. All data shows that, and the sooner we get hunters to get off that notion and the waste of energy and money predator control represents, the quicker solutions will come.
I would change our license structure to be like most other states. You would buy a license first, then you would get your tags on top of that. To apply in MT, you would need to buy a non-refundable license, the same as I pay in NV, AZ, ID, etc.
Solving these problems is going to be expensive. I would raise resident fees to be in the average of Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. I would then index it for inflation to get rid of the stupid arguments we have with legislators every decade when a fee increase is needed. Residents would be mad, but as you said, it is not a popularity contest. And as Buzz said, solving these problems requires money.
I would confront Federal land agencies about their management actions. I would work with them whenever I could, but I would also use whatever tools I might have as a boot in the butt, in instances where they are not fulfilling their obligations.
But, since I am not King for a day, and never will be, all of my drivel is just that, drivel.
I also had 4 mule deer in my backyard today.. and yes, I'm in the center of town.
