How AZGFD determines harvest data

[ForkHorn]

Mandatory harvest data should be the backbone of their decision making. Instead they choose to guess.  

But trust them when they tell you the magical archery harvest quota numbers are based off of accurate data.

If you want to know how many deer were killed in your favorite unit in the past 5 years - they legitimately have no idea.

 

[hunt crazy in ca]

Its 2022.... we don't need any hard evidence to back up any BS we want to say......

[ForkHorn]

I'm not sure if you're supporting their data or my jab at them with that statement but you'd be correct either way because neither side can prove they're right and that seems like a problem.

 

So if you're defending them - my jab still stands. 

Wildlife management is hard because of the nature of having very few tools available to see the landscape of what's going on and they willingly choose to ignore the one they can get some of their best  and most accurate data from in favor of a survey with a pretty crappy confidence interval. IE they're guessing.

They extrapolate harvest numbers based off of a survey that is not required and has no penalty for lying - with no minimum responses required (if there is a minimum, what happens if it isn't met?) 

Not to mention are you more or less likely to fill out that survey if you killed?  They are probably trying to account for that with an algorithm but it is very unlikely to be based off of a recent study and much less likely to be from AZ.

They then take these very imperfect numbers and make HUGE decisions based off of them.

Guidelines are literally written where tag numbers change based off of harvest percentage and THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HARVEST IS.

They will also claim from their Phoenix armchairs that they are very accurate but meanwhile they have no way of proving that. I have looked at harvest data that I knew was incorrect based off of personal knowledge. (I personally knew of more bucks shot on a hunt than they listed.

Ask a wildlife manager the next time you meet one if they think the numbers are accurate. Especially after it forces them to raise tags because of guidelines - and they aren't seeing that make sense on the ground 

 

Meanwhile much of the rest of the country has mandatory harvest reporting.   

 

They way they currently do things is not the best. Shouldn't we demand that?

[Northern Pintail]

You want to blame GF but I blame hunters.  We need to give them good data.  Yes mandatory is the way to go but for the last 50 years all hunters should have been sending in their surveys.  You just want an easy out by blaming gf.   

[ForkHorn]

An easy out?  An easy out is not doing your job and blaming it on someone else.  Hunters come and go. Only one agency is charged with managing wildlife.  Hunters should be better - but in reality they aren't.  That doesn't mean you shrug your shoulders and say "oh well - they'll be better next year."

 

And then continue to make decisions based on bad data.

[firstcoueswas80]

Loooooong ago someone told me "if you fill out those reports when you.kill, eventually you'll stop getting tags because you kill deer."

 

I can't imagine Im the only.one who has been told that.

[Couescrazy33]

No wonder I cant draw tags anymore. Make sense now

[dustin25]

This is how…

[dustin25]

And that’s not to bash azgfd. I’m a supporter. But There is no real data collected, so it’s literally impossible for them to come up with real harvest data. That’s why this whole archery deer change is so frustrating, if it was backed by data, id be all for it.But it’s not, because there is no data.

For example,I saw something that’s said success rates on archery coues in southern Arizona was as high as 20%. There’s no way, for one. For two, there’s no mandatory reporting so it would be impossible to know.

[Calamado_Guey]

2 hours ago, dustin25 said:

And that’s not to bash azgfd. I’m a supporter. But There is no real data collected, so it’s literally impossible for them to come up with real harvest data. That’s why this whole archery deer change is so frustrating, if it was backed by data, id be all for it.But it’s not, because there is no data.

For example,I saw something that’s said success rates on archery coues in southern Arizona was as high as 20%. There’s no way, for one. For two, there’s no mandatory reporting so it would be impossible to know.

Maybe they simply came up with the harvest quotas as a general guess to begin the baseline for evaluating and editing the numbers going forward. For sure, as a group, hunters have not been consistent in returning the harvest surveys so what could G/F do? They start implementing rules (reporting within 48 hours) to get the data they need to begin realizing more accurate ratios. We could have helped ourselves had more people participated (honestly) in the surveys for the last 20 years. This isn’t a G/F problem, this is a G/F effort to a solution. 

[hunt crazy in ca]

On 6/9/2022 at 2:27 PM, ForkHorn said:

I'm not sure if you're supporting their data or my jab at them with that statement but you'd be correct either way because neither side can prove they're right and that seems like a problem.

 

So if you're defending them - my jab still stands. 

Wildlife management is hard because of the nature of having very few tools available to see the landscape of what's going on and they willingly choose to ignore the one they can get some of their best  and most accurate data from in favor of a survey with a pretty crappy confidence interval. IE they're guessing.

They extrapolate harvest numbers based off of a survey that is not required and has no penalty for lying - with no minimum responses required (if there is a minimum, what happens if it isn't met?) 

Not to mention are you more or less likely to fill out that survey if you killed?  They are probably trying to account for that with an algorithm but it is very unlikely to be based off of a recent study and much less likely to be from AZ.

They then take these very imperfect numbers and make HUGE decisions based off of them.

Guidelines are literally written where tag numbers change based off of harvest percentage and THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HARVEST IS.

They will also claim from their Phoenix armchairs that they are very accurate but meanwhile they have no way of proving that. I have looked at harvest data that I knew was incorrect based off of personal knowledge. (I personally knew of more bucks shot on a hunt than they listed.

Ask a wildlife manager the next time you meet one if they think the numbers are accurate. Especially after it forces them to raise tags because of guidelines - and they aren't seeing that make sense on the ground 

 

Meanwhile much of the rest of the country has mandatory harvest reporting.   

 

They way they currently do things is not the best. Shouldn't we demand that?

Not a jab at you at all, more of a back hand comment on the whole situation..... or society right now really....

Like Dustin above said, huge supporter of all fish and game agency's! However this hole thing is absolutely crazy to me. How do you implement or come to a conclusion on something like this with no REAL HARD DATA ????? Its mind boggling!!!!

I feel like they really dropped the ball on this. They should have taken the following year and made it a %100 mandatory reporting! Report bye "x" time if not a $ penalty or draw penalty? Something! yes your still going to have those that "forget" to report or report false info.... these are the same guys killing in OTC archery and applying for deer tags at application period.....

However I believe the majority of us as sportsman want to see our wildlife succeed! Have I filled out the voluntary questioner absolutely! Have I got my questioner out of the mail and set it to the side to do at a later time  and completely forgot about it.... absolutely!!! However if you are going to charge me $ or threaten my draw apps.... you can bet your butt I'm going to fill it out!

I think AZGF should have implemented the mandatory reporting this year, maybe two? Collected data  and come back to us all and had a couple potential scenarios... "this is really bad, its worse then we thought and these are the changes we need to be doing now" or " wow, its no where NEAR as bad as we thought and what we are going to do is only make these changes for now" AT LEAST YOU HAVE REAL DATA!!!!!!  

I don't know, all I do know is at the end of the day these are just my 2 pennies and like you all our 2 pennies fall on def ears anymore...

 

 

[dustin25]

2 hours ago, Calamado_Guey said:

Maybe they simply came up with the harvest quotas as a general guess to begin the baseline for evaluating and editing the numbers going forward. For sure, as a group, hunters have not been consistent in returning the harvest surveys so what could G/F do? They start implementing rules (reporting within 48 hours) to get the data they need to begin realizing more accurate ratios. We could have helped ourselves had more people participated (honestly) in the surveys for the last 20 years. This isn’t a G/F problem, this is a G/F effort to a solution. 

Then they should’ve gathered the info through mandatory reporting for a couple years, then made changes

[AZBIG10]

15 hours ago, ForkHorn said:

An easy out?  An easy out is not doing your job and blaming it on someone else.  Hunters come and go. Only one agency is charged with managing wildlife.  Hunters should be better - but in reality they aren't.  That doesn't mean you shrug your shoulders and say "oh well - they'll be better next year."

 

And then continue to make decisions based on bad data.

The dept has recorded banner years in terms of donations and hunting applications in the last two years. It’s info is per the g&f. I think they are trying to get trophy class deer out of x units and then they want to roll over in the hunters with the premium paid tags. Similar to Wyoming. That’s how I interpret the writing in the wall. Just speculation at this point.

[Calamado_Guey]

51 minutes ago, dustin25 said:

Then they should’ve gathered the info through mandatory reporting for a couple years, then made changes

Good point….