If what you say is correct, then there is already incentives (financial) to buy land in WYO other than hunting. Access may take a hit but unless WYO is converting State lands to private lands, that access is already under pressure as it stands.
WYO regs already address this: Ch 44, Section 8 - "Any lands purchased or subdivided for the primary purpose of obtaining landowner licenses shall not be eligible for landowner licenses." Is WYO G&F not enforcing current regs?
I think this argument is mostly BS. Sheep ranching, whether for wool or for meat production, has been on the decline since 1940. Sheep production now is 10% what it was in WWII. Multiple factors contribute; loss of US textile industry, US consumption of lamb/mutton, improved beef, pork, and chicken production methods (good or bad depending on your POV), weather (cold winters, dry summers), competition from NZ and Australia, etc. Are there isolated examples where a rancher said "forget raising sheep, I can make more money from wild game hunters."? Coulld be, but they were likely already on the very low financial end of the sheep producers to begin with.
Potentially, yes. But all of these programs are voluntary by the landowners so are at risk whether there are transferable tags or not. Many hunter access programs, including those in CO, struggle due to lack of funding for states to compensate landowners for opening up their properties to hunting vs putting it into some other form of production. Suggest you look at PERC (headquartered in Bozeman) as one example of a pro-conservation group that has looked at this topic in detail for quite some time.
Doesn't really solve the potential big $$$ spree that has been raised. Could make it worse as the "supply" is cut but the demand hasn't changed. More $$$'s to fewer landowners that get one of the quota tags. It would allow more tags to make it to the draw portion which is good for the average hunter. But passing a change that takes away from an existing entitlement will be challenging and has the potential to further discourage landowners from participating in any hunting access programs whether they get a quota tag or not. If WYO is going to screw the landowner, two can play at that game. They can simply close their land to the public and sell "access" rather than tags. They already have that right.
Again - WYO already has regs around subdivision for the purposes of getting landowner tags. Are these not being enforced?
Landowners can already make big $'s off their land, be it hunting related or not. And many are mutually exclusive.
I am not a fan of transferable tags that can then be sold on the open market. Monetizing a public resource within a private transaction is generally wrong. But the arguments so far have been mostly scare tactics of what might happen with an underlying angst around losing their historical share of the pie. If the goal of this bill is to give landowners a bigger incentive to support and expand habitat improvement that results in a larger and healthier wildlife population, then that benefits everyone. I think there are better ways of achieving that goal than the current bill. As Big Fin has said before, we need to focus on putting more animals on the landscape rather than arguing who gets to kill the last elk.
To respond to a few of the points here.
1. Sheep ranching is highly subsidized already from the tax payer in direct sheep meat and wool subsidies as well as cheap grazing on federal leases. If not for the subsidies sheep ranching would fail to exist. I'm inclined to not prop up a failing industry any more with me wildlife tags.
2. Yes, WY's accessyes program is voluntary. WY does not struggle with funding for the program and absolutely transferable landowner tags would crush accessyes, that's just a fact. That would in turn lead to even more harboring of elk, which is already a huge problem in Wyoming in many areas. Keep in mind, nobody is requesting to do away with the current LO tag program. In fact, I'm supportive of it. Nobody is getting screwed so I don't know what you're even talking about.
3. Yes, we do have regulations on subdividing for the purpose of landowner tags, yes it's been enforced but very difficult to prove.
4. Yes, landowners can already make big bucks off their land via several options for the hunting of public wildlife. They can utilize those that already exist, they don't need transferable tags to profit heavily from my wildlife.
5. The goal is not to incentivize landowners to support more wildlife or wildlife tolerance. Many are pushing agendas such as aerial gunning elk and leaving them in a pile. They have already had wardens gunning elk from the ground and leaving them. They have had wardens killing elk starting August 1. They are allowing elk to be killed by the public into March. The GF hired people to kill as many elk as they could in some areas of the state. The GF have allowed NR and R hunters to kill elk without a license. They have allowed 4 individuals to kill 25 elk each on another property.
Does this sound like the actions of LO's that are looking for incentives to support and expand healthier wildlife populations? Yeah, I don't think so either.
Lets not forget the fact that in many cases the LO tags will have ZERO impact on controlling the population unless those tags are for cow elk. You can't control a population shooting bulls.
One step further, just because a landowner is allowed to transfer and profit from a bull tag, doesn't mean they are going to be any more tolerant of big-game or do anything to improve habitat. There is ZERO requirement for the LO's to do anything to improve habitat. In particular when many times these types of tags are not used anywhere close to the property where the LO tag was issued.
Its simply a give-away program and I don't agree with it at all.
6. I'm also tired of people like you claiming hunters do nothing for landowners. That's a bunch of bullshit. We provide 100% of the funding for damage claims. We provide 100% of the funding for the accessyes program. We provide 100% of the funding for the landowner coupons. The WYGBLC has provided millions of dollars of improvements to private lands for wildlife related projects through grants. We provide 100% of the funding for wardens to field their calls about game violations, trespassing, etc. That's just to name a few of the things we provide 100% of the funding for.
To say that hunters are doing nothing for LO's is a repulsive thing to even imply. Hunters bend over backward to work with landowners and provide millions in support of the many good landowners out there.
I'm not inclined to see that fall apart over transferable tags.
