Changing Seasons

[billrquimby]

I would have thought that the G&F would have looked at which units had leftover tags last year and would have realized that there is already enough 'opportunity' in these units. I am talking about 30A, 30B, 35A, 36A, 36B. These units had a lot of left over tags last year and no surprise - lots of left over tags again this year.

 

Are you saying the tags that weren't issued in the first drawing should be canceled and the number of permits authorized in those units should be reduced in Arizona's hunting lottery next year?

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SunDevil]

no to the first part but probably yes to the second part.

 

and I say this know that if they had not increased opportunity the way they did this year I probably would not have obtained a leftover tag.

 

it is kind of like the law of diminishing return - you might pay $4 for a piece of cake but probably on $2 for a second piece and by the time you are offered a 4th piece you probably would not buy it at all (not even for a penny). the same is true for hunting opportunity in some units. clearly based on the number of leftover tags in the 2007 draw year - there was plenty of 'opportunity' in many of the units (30A, 30B, 35A, 36A, etc). my opinion is that with there being enough 'opportunity' already for these units (based on all the leftover tags in 2007) more 'opportunity' was not warranted and the dept probably should have looked a little closer to adding an additional hunt and additional tags in the units.

[billrquimby]

no to the first part but probably yes to the second part. and I say this know that if they had not increased opportunity the way they did this year I probably would not have obtained a leftover tag. it is kind of like the law of diminishing return - you might pay $4 for a piece of cake but probably on $2 for a second piece and by the time you are offered a 4th piece you probably would not buy it at all (not even for a penny). the same is true for hunting opportunity in some units. clearly based on the number of leftover tags in the 2007 draw year - there was plenty of 'opportunity' in many of the units (30A, 30B, 35A, 36A, etc). my opinion is that with there being enough 'opportunity' already for these units (based on all the leftover tags in 2007) more 'opportunity' was not warranted and the dept probably should have looked a little closer to adding an additional hunt and additional tags in the units.

 

SunDevil:

 

The problem is they're called "left-over permits," which apparently makes you feel that people do not want to hunt there or that there is insufficient game in those units to warrant the number of permits that were authorized. Wrong on both counts. They're not "left-over." They just weren't issued in the first drawing.

 

You also have the word "opportunity" confused with something else.

 

In this instance it means making it possible for more individuals to hunt without increasing significantly the number of animals killed, a number that the professional wildlife biologists we've hired have deemed can safely be removed from that area's population. You're one of those individuals this year because you know how to work the system. Although many hunters aren't as smart as you, it does not mean they shouldn't be allowed to go hunting if the resource isn't negatively affected.

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

 

 

 

[SunDevil]

Q - obviously there are other places would prefer to hunt or they would have applied for these hunts. I do not recall ever making mention of there being insufficient game in these units to support increased hunts and tags. Since you bring it up though, an important part of your last statement:

 

"making it possible for more individuals to hunt without increasing significantly the number of animals killed, a number that the professional wildlife biologists we've hired have deemed can safely be removed from that area's population"

 

I question the ability to accurately determine 'safely' in the statement you made above. My biggest doubt is in the ability to accurately determine harvest numbers from voluntary report surveys. after that, to base deer population stats on 1 wildlife manager being in the field in the end of jan for a couple of days seems questionable to me.

 

that is what they do so that is what they are going to base all of their info on. seems to me if there is not a lot of finger crossing and hoping there should be.

 

they added 5 hunters to 36C this fall who normally would not have hunted. hopefully our success will be 100% and hopefully the other 69 leftover hunters are not as successful as we are otherwise that 'safe' number will have been thrown out the window.

[scoutm]

If "making it possible for more individuals to hunt without increasing significantly the number of animals killed" is the goal why don't they just add a 1000 WT tags to 37B. You'll have a 1000 more with the opportunity to hunt but with little chance of killing any animals. Meets the goal but doesn't really provide a quality opportunity.

 

I have to ask, wouldn't there be far more opportunity and more quality opportunity created by finding a way to open access to the thousands of acres of public land that private land owners have blocked access to? Has anyone ever studied the opportunity lost in this area?

 

I for one would like to see AZGFD take a much more active role in opening roads that are illegally locked and creating new access points to other blocked areas.

[.270]

is it just me, or did my question get dodged again? Lark.

[gamespec]

ok, i have a question or two. well i have about a million of em, but i'll try and hold it to 2 simple ones.

 

1. why do folks, especially wildlife professionals, always act like dry years are something out of the norm in Az. and use it as an excuse for declining game numbers? this is ARIZONA. it's a desert. it's always dry. that's why we have cactus and mesquites instead of coastal cedars and moss. sometimes we have a wet year, but those are the out of ordinary years. the dry years are the normal years. i also have a hard time with any type of deer data that says absolutely nothing about predator numbers. you guys do know we have soyotes and lions don't ya?

 

2. i asked this question of an azgfd guy a couple years ago and he wouldn't answer me. i hunted in 22n with my cousin a couple years back. i can't remember the year for sure, maybe 2006? he had the 2nd of 2 late hunts. saw a lot of elk, they got a couple, had a good time. this was the last year that we had to apply for deer, elk, pronghorn, sheep, etc all at the same time. the draw for elk for the next year was the first year with the early drawing for elk and pronghorn. seems like the numbers for permits were out within days of the end of the season. lo and behold, they had doubled the tags for one of the u22 late bull hunts and had over a 50% increase for the other u22n late hunt. what kind of data did the azgfd use to come up with the increases in permits? it dang sure wasn't from the harvest mailers they send out, because the permit numbers were set before they were ever mailed. there was no time to do any kind of good survey with ariel or land based methods. just exactly what kind of data was used? i have my own conspiracy theory that i will always assume is correct, because i'm a smart guy and can make 2+2= whatever i want it to. anyway, this is something i've been wondering about for, well since it happened. only reason i noticed it was because i was thinking of applying for that hunt. i wait with anticipation for answers. Lark.

 

1. We are in a desert but any place has an average annual rainfall amount. When biologists say we had a dry year(s) they don't mean compared to Minnesota, they mean compared to average for that area. Desert dwelling animals adapt to the desert, but a series of drier-than-average years stresses them and usually causes declines in populations through increased mortality and decreased reproduction.

 

We do know there are lions and coyotes. I'm not sure what you mean by "deer data' with no mention of predators. The Mule Deer Working Group that I chair has produced a lot of very good stuff on predation and its affects on deer populaiton dynamics. We wrote a book about all the mule deer issues in the West and devoted an entire chapter to predators. We then converted that into an easier to read document (the big blue book) that has a whole section on predation and its affects on deer. The North American Mule Deer Conservation Plan has a whole section on predators (including a great photo of a big lion I took in Aravaipa). We then wrote a scientific review paper for Wildlife Society Bulletin that reviews what we know about predator-mule deer relationships across North America. You can find a lot of predation research in the Deer/Elk Workshop Proceedings for that last few decades. All these are available at www.muledeerworkinggroup.com. When I talk about specific survey or harvest data, I usually don't mention predators.

 

 

2. I'm not sure I understand this question, but I think you are asking 2 things: 1) how did we make recommendations so fast w/o getting the harvest data back and why were permits increased? I think what you are refering to in the first case is the year we switched and added a 3rd draw (antelope and elk). During that transition, we had to make recommendations without the benefit of the harvest data because of the timing of it all. Normally we get elk post-hunt questionnaire cards with harvest data back in about Jan and then that info is available for our elk hunt recommendations that were made in February. That year we had to have the final recommendations to the commission for the December meeting so for that year only we had to make recommendations without the hunt data (those data are still important to look at long-term trends). We added this 3rd draw in response to hunters who wanted more time to prepare for antelope and elk hunts. I don't know how how else we could have transitioned to an earlier draw.

 

As for why the permits went up, you would have to call Jon Hanna in Region 6 and ask him to answer that question using the data he has (as I have done with Region 5 issues). Permits are altered using standard guidelines so that all regions are doing things consistently and that management is consistent through time. Anytime anyone has a specific question like this we are only a phone call away -- we work for you.

 

JIM

 

 

 

[gamespec]

well, maybe he ain't gonna reply. my theory was that i saw a lotta uso action up there. it was apparant they applied a lotta folks for that unit. like they useta do in 27. anyway, i figgerd with the cap on nonresident tags for any given unit, they upped the tags in order to get more o' them big nonresident dollars. but that's just my theory. and until someone shows me some real data as to why they did, that's what i'll believe. i don't know how they could arrive at the numbers they did, without any success data to use. the Az elk herd is pretty much livestock that is being managed to finance the rest of the azgfd, with the deer herd paying a big price. Lark.

 

The Mule Deer Working Group I referenced and linked to above also has some great information about elk/deer interactions.

 

JIM

[gamespec]

I had a typo in there. I know that rifle hunters are voluntary and archery hunters mandatory. Just woundering how this is accurate information. As far as I know, AZGFD will implement changes to archery seasons when archery hunters reach 20% of the rifle harvest. How is this not biased. If 50% of rifle hunters return there voluntary surveys, then we should be able to reduce our mandatory 20% number by 50%. This would place us at 10% harvest in respect to rifle hunters. And why are we as archery hunters not able to harvest 50% of the harvest objective. One deer per hunter per calandar year regardless of the method of harvest. I know my statistics are not correct. Just frustration talking!

 

When we only get 50% of the quesitonnaires back then the total number of deer reported harvested has to be doubled to represent all hunters (to include those who did not return the questionnaires). This is pretty boilerplate survey proceedures.

 

AZGFD offers tags for different weapon-types and we have to try to satisfy hunters who have diverse interests. We could allow 90% of the harvest to be from archers -- if the same total number of deer get killed, who cares right? A dead deer is a dead deer from a management perspective. One problem is that there are general hunters who don't want archers to harvest 90% of the total deer harvested because as archery harvest increases the only way AZGFD can maintain total harvest within allowable limits is to decrease the general tags issued. General hunters usually don't think this is fair. We are in a position of trying to find a way to allocate the available resource fairly.

 

JIM

[.270]

well, you managed to skirt both those questions pretty easy.

 

what i'm trying to get is someone to admit that average rainfall for Az. is very low, always. below average and above average rainfall is also very low, relatively. we just don't get much rain here. doesn't matter if we have an exceptionally wet or dry year, there isn't a lot of difference. but people seem to always want to use that as a reason, or excuse, for problems with game numbers. while rain really can be the main reason for whatever game numbers happen to hover around, it doesn't have a lot of effect from year to year, because we just don't get much rain. we get so little rain and the difference between whatever normal is and whatever abnormal is, isn't enough to have a big effect on game animals, for at least several seasons. it does hammer small game and in a hurry, but doesn't seem to have a big effect on deer unless there is really low rainfall for a long time. the browse in the desert is used to no rain. the game in the desert is used to no rain. go back east or north to a state that has high average rain and usually has a lot of feed and have a couple dry years and can be real devastating because the game numbers can be real high and all the sudden the feed is gone,the game numbers are high, and they starve. doesn't happen a lot, but it happens. out here, we never have much feed from year to year and the game is used to it. when we have a dry year it ain't much different than a wet year and it doesn't have much of an effect from year to year on game. the last wet year Az. had was 83. i know it was wet because i floated an elk out of big lake canyon in my row boat. we've had a couple since then that were normal or maybe even above normal, for a year, but nothing like 83.. but when it rains in Az. is more important than how much it rains. and a couple above average years doesn't mean much, because they don't even have that much rain in em. do ya get my drift? seems that every year i read something from the azgfd that says that rainfall has something to do with why permits are where they're at, when the difference between a wet, dry or normal ain't a lot. predators, overhunting, nonnative animal introduction and what looks to a layman like me like maybe poor decisions, appear to have more affect than rain. anyway, that's the way it looks to me, but what do i know?

 

as far as the predator comment, i'll go read your deal again, but i didn't read one word about predators in it before. maybe i missed it.

 

and as far as the permits for u22n, well, what can i say. just seems to me that doubling the permits in an area when there is absolutely no kill data to use, seems a little extreme. Lark. by the way, thanks for the response.

 

 

[gamespec]

***Warning, lengthy read***

 

Last year (2007) I checked 18 WT bucks out of 36C and 11 of the 18 (61%) were 3.5 years old or older. The idea that we are ruining our buck age structure in the quest to allow more people to hunt is just not true when you look at the data. In the last 5 years (2003-07) at my check station, I have aged 490 WT bucks out of GMUs 36ABC and in each of those years 40-56% of the bucks were 3.5 years old or older. I'm pretty proud of that.

 

JIM

 

 

It's my general understanding that a one year old buck is a spike, two year old a two point, 3 year old a 2 maybe small 3 point. And a 4 plus year old deer a mature 3 point. So according to the above numbers half, maybe more of the 490 deer that were harvested in the previously mentioned units are spikes, two points, or small 3 points? Now this is where I need some additional clarification. The way I understand it, it is the responsibility of sportsmen and ultimately the Game and Fish department to manage our wildlife to have healthy herds. What I understand my job as a sportsman to be is to remove older/mature animals, and unhealthy animals from a heard as to have a healthy breeding population of animals. However what I see from the above information is that we are failing at that responsibility. We are from what I can see, harvesting close a majority of deer that may not even have reached the peak of maturity. Now I can understand that there are people that just hunt for the experience or hunt for the meat, and thats fine you are entitled to your interpretation of wildlife management. But to me, it feels like maybe we are not doing as good of a job as we could at managing effectively.

 

I guess what Im getting at is since when did it become about getting as many people as possible into the "woods" hunting. I thought our goal was to manage and conserve wildlife? It seems to me that if we are not harvesting a majority of mature animals then maybe we need to reduce the number of tags til we reach that point? Why do we need to have everyone that wants to have a tag get one? Just like the saying goes "you can't always get what you want." I would gladly sit a few years out in order to ensure that we are doing right by or management principles. And yes there are always going to be people that whine and complain about not getting the "opportunity" to go hunting often enough. Who wouldn't? I want to go hunt bugling bulls every year, but the fact of the matter is, there just aren't enough animals, and concequently there aren't enough tags to go around for everyone. But you know what? I'm proud that most out of state, and in-state hunters regard our state to be one of the finest elk hunting states in the country. And you know what else? I wouldn't trade the opportunity to go elk hunting every year for that fact EVER. I would hate to see our state get to the point where it is a common thing to go elk hunting every year, and a rarity for trophy bulls to be harvested. And yet, I already see this happening with Over the Counter elk permits, and November archery bull tags, I see those as poor excuses to get more revenue and more people in the field.

 

So where does it stop? Premium rut permits slowly get stripped away and more tags get added to lower success winter hunts, until there comes a point where there are only a handful of rut tags available, and it becomes increasingly difficult to harvest mature animals with the exception of one or two trophy units? This is quickly becoming the reality for deer hunts. premium permits that allows hunters to harvest mature animals have been taken away, and added to hunts where people are happy to simply harvest a buck, any buck, and often times end up settling for an animal that is immature. So are we just going to have one or two "trophy units" for coues deer now as well, or worse are we ok with harvesting a majority of immature animals from the herd? I say we take a look at our wildlife management philosophies and follow those as best as possible, and stop worrying that there are not enough permits available for everyone. We need to ensure that we have "quality" healthy herds, and stop worrying that we as hunters are not getting enough "opportunity."

 

I dont think it's fair to criticize something without offering a solution, so here's mine: I think we need to take a look at other avenue of increasing our herds and improving the health of the animals. This can be anything from doing more to reducing the number of predators, to improving available water sources for animals. Make available more volunteer opportunities so we can get out there and do the things it take to help our wildlife, and also do more to publicize these events, because we cant go if we dont know about it. And finally, to make sure everyone gets an equal opportunity at these scarce permits, maybe we need to take a look at the way the draw works to ensure these tags are being allocated fairly. Im just throwing out ideas guys, I just feel like there are other options other than what AZGFD has currently put on the table.

 

Sorry for the large wall of text, but this is something I'm very passionate about, and haven't really gotten much opportunity to express it.

 

Thanks, if you took the time to read this.

-Matt

 

It is difficult to know where to start with this post.

-number of antler points is only related to age in a general way. There is some info in a book or 2 that clearly show what % of yearlings are spikes and forks, and 2 year olds and so forth. You can't look at age distributions and discuss how many were spikes and 2x2s -- you have to have antler pt data.

-Deer are usually only spikes their first year. I have only seen a few 2-yr-old spikes in my life doing deer work across several states. I have never seen a spike older than 2.

-The job of wildlife management agencies and sportsmen is not to cull out the sick and the weak. It is to support a robust system we call the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. We do that by having lots of hunters supporting wildlife conservation through donations at banquets, volunteering on projects, buying licenses, buying hunting and shooting equipt (which has a 10% tax that goes directly to wildlife), and rallying against things that will degrade wildlife habitat. Adopting an exclusive attitude that only a few of us lucky ones each year should be able to hunt without anyone bothering us and be able to have our choice of several record-book bucks actually runs directly contrary to our most successful system of wildlife conservation on the planet. If we managed so that everyone could kill a mature animal (most hunters don't really care as long as it fits in a tortilla), only a small fraction of current hunters could hunt each year wildlife conservation would suffer greatly. Most hunters just want to get out every year with their family members and friends and would not want to wait so they could kill an older deer (that may not taste as good). I'd love to hunt 33 or 36C in December with no one bothering me, but sometimes we have to look at the big picture.

 

We do need to "make more deer." Check out www.muledeerworkinggroup.com and look at Mule Deer Habitat Guidelines for the Southwest Deserts. You can download it as a PDF and see what can be done with habitat to help deer. These guidelines will apply to whitetail also.

 

JIM

 

 

[gamespec]

Ok, and as i said Im not a biologist, that was just my general understanding of a deer's growth cycle. Maybe someone can clarify for me what age bucks live to? 8 years? more? Less? I guess as i said before my main concern is that we are harvesting a majority of deer that havent reached the peak of maturity yet, which I would imagine would be closer to 4-5 years.

 

Peak antler growth occurs at 5-7 years on average for both mule deer and whitetails.

 

JIM

[gamespec]

well Jim - 3,392 (to be exact) could have gone hunting if they had played the odds. I am sure there are probably thousands more (several thousand non-residents and several thousand residents) who only put in for the Kiabab and are not interested in any other 'opportunity'.

 

I would have thought that the G&F would have looked at which units had leftover tags last year and would have realized that there is already enough 'opportunity' in these units. I am talking about 30A, 30B, 35A, 36A, 36B. These units had a lot of left over tags last year and no surprise - lots of left over tags again this year.

 

We would have preferred to put 33 Oct in as our second choice (behind a Dec hunt) but knew that the way the draw works and the bonus points we have, we would have obtained the 33 Oct tag through the 20% bonus point allocation without the draw even getting to our 1st choice Dec hunt application (something wrong with the draw in these situations in my opinion).

 

I don't know how many of those applicants are nonresidents choosing only a Dec WT tag or a Kaibab tag. I'll see if I can find out.

 

We prescribe permits by GMU based on biology and our management guidelines and not whether some went in the second draw. If we think a level of permits is appropriate for that unit and hunters take the permits, I'm not sure why we'd want to decrease them.

 

I am aware of this deal with the 20% bonus pt allocation. I'll see if anyone is working on fixing that. The drawing program is incredibly complicated.

 

JIM

[gamespec]

If "making it possible for more individuals to hunt without increasing significantly the number of animals killed" is the goal why don't they just add a 1000 WT tags to 37B. You'll have a 1000 more with the opportunity to hunt but with little chance of killing any animals. Meets the goal but doesn't really provide a quality opportunity.

 

I have to ask, wouldn't there be far more opportunity and more quality opportunity created by finding a way to open access to the thousands of acres of public land that private land owners have blocked access to? Has anyone ever studied the opportunity lost in this area?

 

I for one would like to see AZGFD take a much more active role in opening roads that are illegally locked and creating new access points to other blocked areas.

 

You probably know this, but I should mention that we have a full-time person (maybe that FTE mentioned before!!) that does nothing but work with landowners in SE AZ to preserve and open new access points. His name is Matt Walton in the Tucson office and he does a phenomenal job. We have others in Phoenix in a whole "Access Program" doing the same thing and they are very active, but I don't have to tell anyone here what a huge and widespread problem it is. They do what they can and they actually do some amazing things. This is something we all need to work very hard on - its only going to get worse.

 

JIM

[CouesWhitetail]

Thanks much Jim for taking the time to respond to everyone's questions. I know it's an impossible task to answer everything all the time, so I appreciate all the time you do put in. I don't even have time today to read all those lengthy answers you posted (!), but I am sure it's good information and I thank you for your time here. I know you have many other obligations and coming here to the forum can eat up a lot more time than you have available. Too bad we can't get more people from the Dept to help answer some of these questions to help take the load off you....

 

Amanda