azgfd survey

[coues krazy]

anyone else get this via e-mail today? I smell a rat! Things are gonna change sooner than later if we dont fight them

[out2hunt]

I did the survey and hope it helps change things for the better.All we can do as a hunting community is to voice our opinions and hope for the best.

[dustyb0]

Another way to spend $ to find ways to get more$.I wish they would give it a rest.

[coues krazy]

Another way to spend $ to find ways to get more$.I wish they would give it a rest.

I couldnt agree more. I am afraid they are going to ruin our elk heard by giving a bunch more tags.

[25-06]

I did'nt get the survey....What 's it about?

[az4life]

I did not get the survey either. Strange as I am on the Dept Emailing list!

 

Probably tired of my uncooperative non conformist position toward their

poor planning and amateur politics. Seems their #1 goals have been adjusted to raising revenues,

even at the expense of the game animals they are supposed to be stewards of.

 

Well, I sure feel better getting that off my chest.

[dustyb0]

http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=U2552TKPH52C

[elkhunter]

I got one of them, they randomly selected people from the fall draw and sent out the survey to them...if you didn't get it then you didn't get picked no biggie

[DEERSLAM]

Got the survey today. I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

[bowhunter4life]

I too received and took the survey. looks like they are still trying to find an anser to get people draw more.

[couesdiehard]

My wife and I both got a survey and I started to fill it out earlier but the questions suck so bad I had to stop! Stupid questions like "In a ten year period how often do you think a hunter should be able to hunt elk? I wanted to ask a few questions back to them. Like, do you mean bull or cow elk? General, muzzle-loader, or bowhunts? Do you mean rut hunts, late season or limited-opportunity?

I mean I fill out surveys for G & F regularly but this thing is so manipulative it ticked me off! I came away with the definite impression that the questions were written to elicit responses that indicate hunters would like to hunt more, duh. But then they can take those survey responses, tell us we want to hunt more and take away more trophy opportunities and sell thousands more lower quality hunts. It turned my stomach!

Lee

[Coach]

I got it and it is clearly designed to support their pre-drawn conclusions - that we all want more tags even if it means poor quality. Also on their website is their 6-year "strategic plan" called "Wildlife 2012". If you dig far enough through all the hoopla, the #1 recreation objective (the page labeled as page 12, but actually found on page 16 ofthe PDF document) is:

 

"Increase opportunities for use and enjoyment of wildlife".

 

Yup, and you can probably guess the first two items listed under the strategies to accomplish this goal, but here they are anyway.

 

#1: Identify, assess, develop and promote recreational uses of wildlife in Arizona.

#2: Implement efforts to increase hunter and angler recruitment and retention.

 

For those untrained in deciphering G&F lingo, this translates roughly to: "Sell more permits, even if we have to create bogus opportunity".

 

G&F is planning to get public input on their long-range goal. Here's what I suggest we all do. Take a good look at the page labeled Page 2 of the document (page 6 of the PDF file). This is the page that outlines the deparment's Mission, Vision and Principals. Next, take some time to clearly explain how in your own opinion, G&F is failing miserably to live up to their stated mission, vision and principals and how the proposals listed in Wildlife 2012 continue to diverge even further from the ideals set fourth there.

 

Here are a few examples, IMO.

The recent change to eliminate 90% of the Dec. coues hunts and replace them with larger numbers of tags coinciding with the November mule deer hunts clearly was made in spite of strong public opposition. (There goes the "responsiveness to customers" principal. It also could be easily argued that packing larger numbers of hunters into a very limited space at the same time directly counters their Mission: "To conserve, enhance, and restore Arizona's diverse wildlife resources and habitats agressive management programs...".

 

Then there's the glaring omission of any strategic plan to improve wildlife habitat to counter the effects of the drought (dig some deeper catchments, etc.) or to make any effort whatsoever to improve the badly diminished mule deer and antelope herds in this state. Hmmm, there's a concept, rather than just issuing more tags to increase opportunity, let's maybe take a shot at increasing our herd strength to numbers similar to those seen in neighboring states.

 

How about the recent effort to kill all non-native trout - yes - intentionally kill all rainbows, browns and brookies from AZ waterways to make room for the Apache trout - that got out of control recently and ended up killing just about every fish from Greer to the Little Colorado? How's that for protecting habitat and wildlife diversity? Or the botched wolf program that drains tons of $$, the rumored Grizzly reintroduction that will undoubtedly cause potenially permanent closures in certain wilderness areas, it just goes on and on.

 

This is definately the time to be heard. I hear almost daily from responsible, ethical, law-abiding hunters how G&F is losing the respect of life-long supporters. It seems the dept has lost its way and really needs to hear that everything's NOT alright in the minds of Arizona's sportsmen and women. Unless you want another 6 years of what we've seen in the past 12 months. If that's the case, sit back and relax.

[shortpants]

My wife and I both got a survey and I started to fill it out earlier but the questions suck so bad I had to stop! Stupid questions like "In a ten year period how often do you think a hunter should be able to hunt elk? I wanted to ask a few questions back to them. Like, do you mean bull or cow elk? General, muzzle-loader, or bowhunts? Do you mean rut hunts, late season or limited-opportunity?

I mean I fill out surveys for G & F regularly but this thing is so manipulative it ticked me off! I came away with the definite impression that the questions were written to elicit responses that indicate hunters would like to hunt more, duh. But then they can take those survey responses, tell us we want to hunt more and take away more trophy opportunities and sell thousands more lower quality hunts. It turned my stomach!

Lee

Haven't read the survey but gotta say, well said Lee!

[Coach]

For those interested, here's the link to the article about the Greer fish kill in case I exaggerated in my assessment.

 

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=...06184&rfi=6

[KGAINES]

the survey was sent to all applicants who included their email with their app. online.

on a side note, they are going back to paper apps at least through next year.

Well said couesdiehard.