Wyoming Resident Poll for or against preference points

[Cornell2012]

You can either choose to hunt more often or hunt a great unit once in a lifetime.

If you want to hunt the very best units that each state has to offer, then you will have to wait in line with the rest of the people that want to do the same.

The point I'm trying to make (as jtm307 said) is that there is a generation of hunters that will basically never be able to hunt the premium units.

 

[Brad Daniel]

I'm an adult onset hunter, and I have my heart set on WY moose in area 38. Based on 2016 quota and applications, if I had started purchasing preference points 20 years ago, the probability of me having drawn a tag at least once over 20 years is 5%. Without a preference point system, the probability would have been 12%. Theoretically, the probability is eventually 100%, but because of point creep, every year a preference point system continues, the number of points needed to guarantee any unit can only go up in the long run. The point system does not work in the long run. For me, the odds of hunting in area 38 will never be as high as they would be without a preference point system because the number of max point holders and one-less than max point holder will always exceed the number of preference point tags.

I am one of those guys holding a 38 moose tag for this season. For a cow. I started putting in for moose in 1984. In 1994 I applied for a cow tag in 25 and drew. That next year or sometime shortly after we went to this screwed up points systems for residents. Instantly I was five years behind in the game and my chances of ever hunting 38 for bulls went circling down the drain. Three years ago I had enough points for a cow tag but didn't put in. Last year I somehow got point creeped out and this year I decided to stop playing this stupid game and get it over with.
While it won't be a bull, I do get to hunt my old stomping grounds for moose. Its off to Alaska for a bull in my future.

 

[TheDudeAbides]

I have a degree in math with a focus on probability and statistics. In the long run, ones odds of eventually hunting a top tier unit in a given span of time is twice as high under a lottery system than under a pp system. I can show you my spreadsheet if you doubt me. The only way a pp system guarantees an eventual draw is in a middle tier unit for which the sum of max point applicants and one-less-than-max-point applicant is less than the number of tags more than 50% of the time. If WY initiated a pp system for all species next year, I could eventually hunt elk in area 100, but my kids would almost certainly never draw. Currently the odds of drawing 100 at least once in the next 20 years are 1:3. That's not bad, and my kids will have those same odds as long as the draw system remains a lottery. The pp system as some have already stated is biased in favor of wy resedents old enough to purchase points at the initiation of the pp system. Future hunters and future WY residents are greatly disadvantaged in the long run. A lottery system is unbiased and incentivizes new WY hunters. If you disincentivize new hunters, you can kiss federal lands goodbye.

I would be interested in looking at your spreadsheet.

I have ran the number before and you are correct about in the long run about top tier units (~10%).

There were a few things that I didn't know how to account for in the numbers and I am curious on how you adjusted for the numbers.

I was not sure what numbers to use to adjust for those entering or exiting the pool (Via points only, switching units, moving, retiring, etc).

I imagine that I could come with an average and standard deviation from the past for the allotment of tags and the number of applicants.

I would be curious to see how you accounted for this.

Also, I would be interest in how you obtained the 1:3 number for the desert.

It is my understanding the each of the twenty years you odds would be independent of the previous years. Which to me means, that you cannot add or multiply them together. Each event is a year by year basis. The example that I have in my head is that if I apply for 10 hunts at 10% then I will draw one of them a year, which is not true. I would only have a 10% chance at drawing each of them. I do have more chances to draw, but each draw is independent of the other and in no way effects the other draw. I would be interested in how you calculated this number, because I cannot wrap my mind around how you obtained the 1:3 number.

The way that I understand that you can calculate the numbers is to take the 20 year tags and divide it by the 20 year applicants. If you take the overall tags using this years number of 71 and multiply by 20, you get 1,420 tags in twenty years. If you take this years applicants 3,007 and multiply it by 20, you get 60,140. 1,420/60,140 is 2% overall.

I may be a little off on these, so feel free to enlighten me.

 

[MoGreen]

You can either choose to hunt more often or hunt a great unit once in a lifetime.
No system helps 71 tags for 3,007 people applying.(Wy Elk 100)

The only way to help the 3,000 people hunt the unit is to increase the tags.

And that is likely not possible in many of those units because of the elk populations. While many of these units may be managed for larger bulls, the real reason there are not many tags is because the elk population just is not large enough to support it.

 

[MooseCaboose]

The example that I have in my head is that if I apply for 10 hunts at 10% then I will draw one of them a year, which is not true. I would only have a 10% chance at drawing each of them. I do have more chances to draw, but each draw is independent of the other and in no way effects the other draw.
I may be a little off on these, so feel free to enlighten me.

I'm also interested in JTM's modeling because his stats ability certainly surpasses my own. However I can (hopefully, JTM will have to check me) at least answer the question quoted above. You are right in thinking that each draw is independent in that they do not influence each other. However, there is an aggregate probability that it becomes more likely that you will draw at least one time in the series.

It might be useful to think about the chances that you have not to draw. The first draw, if you have a 10% chance to draw you obviously have a 90% chance of not drawing. Same with the second draw at 10%. So together your odds of drawing no tags is 0.9*0.9= 81%. This means that your out of the two draws you had a 19% chance of coming up successful at least on time.

You can expand this logic to the example you gave, where there are ten draws at 10% each time. The chances of you drawing no tags are 0.9^10 = 35% which means your chances of drawing at least one tag would be about 65%.

If you wanted to figure out your chances of drawing two or more tags, you would get into a discussion of permutations and combinations but I think I have already exceeded most HuntTalkers daily allowance for math posts.