The meeting

[billrquimby]

It's been 52 years since I took those statistics courses in pursuit of my marketing degree at the UA, but I did hire and work with professional survey designers during the dozen years I worked in advertising and public relations and I'd bet the rules haven't changed that much.

 

I'm sorry if I step on the toes of the people who put it together, but I'm afraid I agree with the commissioners who said the survey was not scientific.

 

1. Participants were not randomly selected. The ADA and CW participants campaigned to get as many like-thinking hunters as possible to take the survey. Neutral hunters and hunters who agreed with the agency did not.

 

2. Although the instructions stated someone could vote only once, there was no way to enforce this if that person wanted to vote multiple times using different names and birthdates.

 

3. There was no way to know if respondents even had ever bought a hunting license, let alone hunted a whitetail in the past or intended to hunt in the future.

 

5. Some of the key questions would result in only certain responses, much like asking: yes or no, have you stopped beating your wife?

 

I could go on. It would be interesting if someone would finance a professionally-conducted survery. A sample smaller than 6,500 could provide acceptable statistical accuracy if: A. Say, 1,000 participants were randomly selected from the 2005 whitetail hunting permit holders, and B. Much more time was spent preparing the questions to be certain the survey resulted in everyone knowing what the majority of hunters want.

 

Bill Quimby

[KGAINES]

Bill you are right about it not being random and scientific, but anyone could take it and the azgfd sent out 44,000 e-mails to deer hunters from last year to take the survey, they were probably randomly selected and sent out, but nobody cared to take it. It was also posted on the azgfd home page, and anyone visiting the site could take it there too. I really don't think the ADA and the group that put the survey out had enough time to do it like they would have liked so they did the next best thing in the time they had.

[DesertBull]

The archery elk hunters survey was done the exact same way and they accepted it. That is what really ticks me off.

 

IMO, they just needed an excuse to rubberstamp it and .....

 

 

 

CHA-CHING!

[billrquimby]

"Bill you are right about it not being random and scientific, but anyone could take it and the azgfd sent out 44,000 e-mails to deer hunters from last year to take the survey, they were probably randomly selected and sent out, but nobody cared to take it. It was also posted on the azgfd home page, and anyone visiting the site could take it there too. I really don't think the ADA and the group that put the survey out had enough time to do it like they would have liked so they did the next best thing in the time they had."

 

Keith:

 

I was under the impression that there were fewer than 40,000 rifle mule deer AND white-tailed deer hunters in 2005. I wonder how they got everyone's e-mail address?.... I hunted deer in Arizona in 2005, and I have email capability. AGFD did not contact me, so I guess they didn't want my opinion.

 

Just because everyone who felt strongly about -- and also knew about -- the poll could enter does not validate the results of that survey. There are three groups in nearly every issue -- those who disagree; those who are nuetral; and those who agree. To learn what the majority of whitetail hunters want, all three groups needed to be equally surveyed.

 

Bill Quimby

[KGAINES]

Bill I wasn't trying to argue with you, I do agree about it not being random, somebody else that was there can correct me if I am wrong about the 44,000 number, but the number of applicants that the azgfd kept alluding to was 100,000, and a few didn't think 6,500 of 100,000 was enough. I do think a random 1,000 hunters surveyed by a un-biased group would be valid.

[Redman]

The archery elk hunters survey was done the exact same way and they accepted it. That is what really ticks me off.

 

IMO, they just needed an excuse to rubberstamp it and .....

 

 

 

CHA-CHING!

 

Desertbull,

 

Good point. I wonder if more people responded to the Game and Fish individually about the Nov archery elk hunts. It seems the elk hunts had an issue that was easily distinguished...... an overwhelming majority disapproved of the idea.

 

I am not so sure there was one silver bullet for the deer hunts. It seems from most of the posts I read here, most people objected to multiple things like:

 

1. Longer Oct hunt

2. Fall Javallina Season

3. Reducing Dec WT tags in the central units to open earlier hunts.

 

But the results of the survey showed that the majority of people wanted a longer Oct hunt, a fall Javillina hunt. The survey did show a majority did not want the WT Dec tags reduced, but after reviewing tag numbers for this year most Dec hunts in the southern units are going up. The central units are going to be managed like the southern units are managed now.

 

I feel there were many issues for deer and really only one BIG issue for elk.

 

I hope everybody has a good season after all.

 

Redman

[coues7]

Rembrant,

 

I DO NOT NEED ANGER MANAGEMENT. I was simply expressing my opinion. Just because I had all caps and a cuss word doesn't mean I'm violent or have anger problems. I am just really concerned about what the AZGFD is doing with our hunting future. If the ADA worked with the AZGFD to put the survey together then I would think they would listen to the results. I took the survey and am disappointed that only 6500 people did. If we love hunting and the outdoors so much it doesn't matter how busy we are we need to take time for the things that matter most to us.....families, outdoors, hunting etc.

 

I agree that the AZGFD shouldn't just listen and give into whatever any joe blow wants but some of their decisions are just mind boggeling.

[Guest Ernesto C]

Hola Sr. Bill please help with this questions:

 

How can we the average hunter make a scientific survey and completetly valid for the commissioners? or what we should have done?

 

Let say that we had provided an randomly and scientific survey...............Do you think that the commission would take it in consideration? or they will do as they want regardless of the survey results?

 

What's your opinion or why do you think that the Az G&F helped put together the survey if it was going to be completly useless?

 

Sr. Bill one last question,did you knew that the survey was not randomly and scientifically made before the commission meeting?

 

Thank you and God bless.

 

Ernesto C

 

Always tell some one where you'll be hunting

[billrquimby]

1. "I do think a random 1,000 hunters surveyed by a un-biased group would be valid."

 

So do I. A statistician might even say a smaller sample would get acceptable results if participants were properly selected.

 

2. "How can we the average hunter make a scientific survey and completetly valid for the commissioners? or what we should have done?"

 

I don't know. I do know that surveys done by biased non-professionals have about as much effect as petitions, with is not much more than nil.

 

3. "Let say that we had provided an randomly and scientific survey...............Do you think that the commission would take it in consideration? or they will do as they want regardless of the survey results?"

 

If a reliable survey showed the majority of whitetail deer hunters wanted something, I believe the commissioners would have would have listened.

 

4. What's your opinion or why do you think that the Az G&F helped put together the survey if it was going to be completly useless?

 

The Game and Fish Department is comprised of employees who sometimes do things to minimize conflict. Game and Fish Commissioners do less of this.

 

5. "Did you knew that the survey was not randomly and scientifically made before the commission meeting?"

 

Si, Sr. Ernesto. I did not say anything until after the meeting because I disagreed with many of the others on this forum, and I did not want my criticism of that survey to affect the outcome of the process. (The commissioners obviously were able to detect the survey's faults without my help.) If you noticed, I stayed completely out of the debate leading up to the meeting.

 

As I've said often on this forum, I believe the future of hunting depends upon providing more hunting for more people. If we continue to lose deer hunters at the rate we have lost them over the past 30 years it will not be long before we soon will be talking about hundreds of hunters, not thousands.

 

I really shouldn't care about the future of hunting because my grandson is not a hunter, and it won't be very long before I am too old to hunt, but I do care ... a lot.

 

Bill Quimby

[Redman]

Hola Sr. Bill please help with this questions:

 

How can we the average hunter make a scientific survey and completetly valid for the commissioners? or what we should have done?

 

Let say that we had provided an randomly and scientific survey...............Do you think that the commission would take it in consideration? or they will do as they want regardless of the survey results?

 

What's your opinion or why do you think that the Az G&F helped put together the survey if it was going to be completly useless?

 

Sr. Bill one last question,did you knew that the survey was not randomly and scientifically made before the commission meeting?

 

Thank you and God bless.

 

Ernesto C

 

Always tell some one where you'll be hunting

 

Ernesto,

 

what do you think the survey said that the commission ignored?

 

Redman

[Guest Ernesto C]

Sr.Bill,thank you very much for your answers they are very apreciated,you know that I have always admire and respected you and I still do,your answers to this questions have not change at all the way I think of you Sr.Bill and I directed this questions to you because I know you are a wise person with lots of experience.

 

I personally, like you, stayed out of the dabate and I had my reasons just like you but I did took the survey cause there were several things I din't like; to me,I think is very dangerous to have more deer hunters in the field plus the javalina hunters at the same time. I see in the future.............wearing blaze orange will be mandatory.

 

Again I appreciate the time you took to anser my questions and I'm always looking forward to keep learning from you. God bless.

 

 

Redman the commission ignored the whole survey. Like I asked Sr.Bill,why will they help put up a survey that they will say is meaningless?

I dont think the commission know and care about the tons of time and effort Amanda and several other people spent working on this survey and traveling to Phoenix to the meeting;to me and forgive me Lord if I'm judging......they were (the commission) completly selfish and a little more.

 

 

You know, I just deleted half of my post......I did not want to offend any one;but to Amanda and all that people that work hard for this survey God bless them.The Lord knows how hard you worked for this and your effort was not in vain.Amen.

 

I guess I have a lot to learn still.God bless CWT.com.

 

Ernesto C

[CouesWhitetail]

Just so you know Bill, we actually did get a random list of archery deer and rifle WT hunter applicants (including Oct, Nov, and Dec hunters) from AGFD and we (the ADA) spent thousands of dollars mailing them postcards about the survey. And out of about 15,000 people mailed a postcard we got about 1000 responses back. So maybe we should just pull those 1000 out and use them for the results.

 

And to help make sure we were reaching as many hunters as possible, we also ran announcements of the survey for several weeks in the major PHX papers in their outdoor sections to help grab any and all deer hunters. And in addition we handed out about 1000 postcards at the Intl Sportsmen's Show in Phx to help reach more hunters.

 

Our biggest response to the survey came with AGFD's emailing 44,000 big game hunters (not just deer hunters). Probably a third to half of the respondents came from that email list; which, from what I understand, is some of the same email database used to get people to take the AGFD's online hunter retention survey that was the data used to justify this whole "increase hunter opportunity" proposal. That survey, which AGFD said is what was driving the current proposal, was not scientific or randomized and had about the same number of respondents as did the ADA survey and the archery elk survey.

 

I found it interesting at the meeting that the commission would say the ADA deer hunter survey was of high quality and respresented what a large number of sportsmen wanted, but yet they wanted to discount it because a large number of other hunters didn't take it. But they had no other data to respresent what that large number of unsurveyed hunters wanted. Where is their scientific evidence that the hunters who didn't take the survey disagree with the majority of hunters who took the survey?

 

And another thing worth noting is that 56% of the survey respondents said they were primarily mule deer hunters, so I think we reached a large number of hunters who are interested in more than just Dec WT hunts.

 

AGFD worked hard with the ADA to develop the questions in such a way as to make the answers useful to their management decisions. That was a big part of the process that went into making the survey. The Dept supported the survey knowing full well it wouldn't be a randomized sampling of hunters.

 

Amanda

[TwoGuns]

I think this discussion is good. It is good to hear hunters voice their opinions. It is obvious that all of us care very much about the issues involved.

 

When I took the survey I felt it was not that well prepared, and not from an objective point of view. But, I believe that the questions on the survey are not the biggest problem. I think the biggest roadblock for all of us is the overall attitude and preconceived notions of the commission. Their agenda seems to be set even before they receive any input from hunters, which it too bad.

 

I do find it ironic that they discount the survey for lack of scientific objectivity, and yet make a comment that based on their "department analysis," only 25 - 30 percent of archers reported their kills. Maybe they provided some basis for this conclusion, but as of yet I do not know what it is. I believe that the number of archery kills each year is much lower than the department estimates. Maybe I am wrong, I certainly don't claim to know everything, I am only speaking from my experience as an archer.

 

One thing I do know for sure, after working for several government institutions, it is obvious they are all very DYSFUNCTIONAL.

[billrquimby]

Amanda.

 

I know you and others put a lot of effort, blood, sweat, and tears into this thing.

 

Nonetheless, despite AGFD participation, it was not scientificallly conducted, which means some or much of its findings are suspect. The question is, which findings?

 

Here are some of the things that bothered me:

 

-- Hunters opposed to the AGFD's proposed changes promoted the survey to like-minded persons, thereby shaping responses and tainting the survey. There apparently was no such effort from the "other side".

 

-- There was no security to keep fanatics from loading the survey. The same person could take the survey multiple times by using made-up names and birthdays. There wasn't even a way of determining if the participants ever had hunted a deer or would hunt a deer in the future.

 

-- Opinion surveys usually have "control" questions to determine if the participant really meant how he/she responded to other questions. There was no such effort in this survey that I could see.

 

-- Surveys should be limited in scope. This one tried to learn too many things.

 

-- Some of the questions were biased against any change in the regs, IMO.

 

 

Bill

[dave]

I am too slow at reading and comprehension to understand all that has been said here.

 

This is what I understand and pointed out to the Commission in my address to them. There are only three legal ways the Commission can hear input from the public.

 

1. Comments made at a Commission meeting.

 

2. Written comments sent to the Commission.

 

3. Comments given at public meetings that are held throughout the state.

 

Any new ideas of how public input should be received by the Commission are something that should be voted on and become new rules.

 

It really doesn?t matter because on all accounts, the public's voice was voted against in this last Commission meeting.

 

In my opinion, this Commission is not responsive to the vast majority of their constituents. In my humble opinion, they have actually broken the rules and pushed their own platform forward.

 

If you all have kept up with what the three Commissioners that our current gov. has appointed, you will see that they now write their own rules and request surveys that they can either like or dislike.

 

There is currently no provision that I know of in Arizona law that gives any weight to any surveys this Commission may request or crap on.

 

It is clear, some have agenda's.