sagebrush

What an awesome buck. Thanks for sharing your story. Let us know the score when you put a tape on him.

http://mountainlion.org/index.asp Know thy enemy.

Agreed, cutting tags doesn't help the health of the herd at all. A buck to doe ratio of 20:100 is more than sufficient to be sure all available does are bred. Things that effect herd health are: 1. Condition of the browse. Too old and it doesn't provide the proper nutrition to promote successful breeding and fawn recruitment. Replacement of good browse by non-browse species such as pinyon pine and juniper. 2. Availability of bedding and escape habitat. 3. Water 4. Predation 5. Non-regulated take (poaching, vehicular) All five of those issues can be addressed by a properly motivated, directed and funded organization comprised of G&F, critter groups, and sportsmen and women. The critter groups need to identify the local projects, G&F to provide resources, interagency coordination and oversight and the sportsmen to provide labor, material donations and additional money. A revenue change from the increase or decrease in tags is really quite small in the grand scheme of things and shouldn't enter into the equation in my opinion. If G&F needs more money, there are many ways to solve that problem and big game tags should not be part of it. I'm happy to see G&F is willing to try different strategies even if I don't necessarily agree with what they implement.

Three more weeks and my son will be boarding a plane for his return home from Afghanistan. Thanks to all that pray for the safety of our troops and thanks to all that serve.

22 tags were issued to critter groups to be auctioned or raffled. 10 tags went into the Super Raffle. $1,333,915 was raised.

I plan on working with the SCG. The only org I give money to is RMEF. The hard working guys on the ground don't need my old decrepid body getting in their way!

We just need a few greedy lawyers on our side of the fence. Work within the system.

This attitude of fecal-phobia could work to our advantage. We need to get the word out to the REI crowd that the forests are rife with all manner of feces and can't be contained. Water supplies are contaminated, even the air could carry Hanta virus. Get the feds to post warnings on all the trails, similar to the warnings along our southern border. Maybe we can start a full fledged panic and get the eco-wackjobs out of the forests altogether. This could work.

People have mentioned the loss of access for us seniors, but what about our youth? Pretty hard to get youngsters excited about the outdoors when they must hike long distances. One of the biggest challenges to keeping our outdoor heritage alive is recruitment and retention. Of course, if there is an unseen agenda of a few misguided senior managers in the Forest Service, maybe thats exactly what they want.