[Waxy]

Bubba,

That doesn't surprise me in the least. This project has some major momentum and a lot of people are heavily personally invested in it, it's going to take a MONUMENTAL effort to derail it at this point. Those directly involved will never be convinced the program is a bad idea, it'll take orders from above in my opinion.

I finally had a chance to pour through the info in detail last night. A number of things really jumped out at me.

Firstly, what's immediately apparent is how little information there actually is. Sure there's 34 pages, but it could easily be summarized in less than 10.

The one thing the really personally and philospohically bothers me is the entire notion that the landowner "bears a burden" by having wildlife on their land. That is completely opposite to the way I was raised to think. In my experience, having abundant wildlife was considered a privilige and an honour. Something to be enjoyed and protected. I just don't see the costs of having wildlife itself on one's land as ever adding up to anything significant, and where major wildlife induced damage does occur, there are programs to compensate for that. The entire thought process is just foreign to me, I guess I'll never understand it. If you don't want wildlife on your property, feel free to enclose it in a giant 50' fence or build a dome over it.

As for the nuts and bolts -

It says with on page 1 "Alberta's Wildlife Act does not permit landowners to charge for hunting". You'd think that would be enough for those involved right there to clue in, but apparently not.

They claim that the RAMP program will increase access to private land from 60 to 75%, I'd like to know what that number is based on? The estimate of an additional 31,000 acres in WMU 300 and 165,000 acres in WMU 108 is completely pie in the sky as far as I'm concerned, both in total area and quality of the area.

The very next sentence is "The RAMP program requires limited regulatory changes and has no negative impacts to any user group". Really? Do they actually believe their own BS at this point?

"Comparable access" is the most sinister phrase in this report. It means nothing.

One of the biggest boondoggle's I see is the elimination of the antlerless Elk and Mule Deer tags in zones 108 and 300 respectively.

- In WMU 300, this means that the number of available resident Mule Deer tags actually decreases from 42 to 30, a nearly 30% decrease in available tags.

- In WMU 108 there were 65 Antlerless Elk tags available in 2007, according to the report, there were no Antlered tags available. Under the Open Spaces program those 65 Antlerless tags would be replaced by 8 Antlered tags. That's an 88% reduction in Elk hunting opportunites in WMU 108. On top of that, basic math applied to the numbers of Mule Deer tags available in WMU 108 shows an ~35% decrease in available resident tags, and 25% for Antelope.

To top it all off, as near as I can tell, the committee is still counting the Antlerless Mule Deer and Elk tags toward the total economic benefit potentially available to the landowners.

If these gaudy numbers don't get people's attention, I don't know what will.

The final major problem I have with this pilot is the lack of any real plan to fund it or administer it. Let's face it, this is going to be VERY costly, especially WHEN it spreads province wide. Another gov't bureaucracy, just what we all need. Not to mention the source of the funding itself

"Long term funding would be based on results of the pilot program and partnerships that can be developed."

What does that mean exactly? Nothing as far as I'm concerned. It's a "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" attitude. That money is going to have to come from somewhere, and Joe Taxpayer is not going to want to come up with it while he waits six months for his surgery. It's going to come directly out of the pockets of hunters.

Anyhoo, rant off. I need to go somewhere and cool off for 5 mins. This thing really gets me hot under the collar.

Waxy