Why Mandatory Harvest Reports ?

[Xbolt7mm]

Originally Posted by Lefty-Canuck

It’s not bad...but if it’s incomplete, and the data can be skewed by leaving a major stakeholder out is it good?

LC

And i guess thats why I wrote all harvesters

[Lefty-Canuck]

Originally Posted by Xbolt7mm

And i guess thats why I wrote all harvesters

Reality is....not ALL harvesters are reporting, that’s the gripe many of us have.

LC

[R3illy]

There are 100 thousand+ kills done by those who are issued tags and you guys think theres no good in having harvest reports mandatory???

I thought hunters are conservationists. Oh thats right.. most just pretend their giving back or protecting wild life/enviromment.

We can point our fingers and lay blame on everyone else for absolutely everything but it needs to start somewhere.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by R3illy

There are 100 thousand+ kills done by those who are issued tags and you guys think theres no good in having harvest reports mandatory???

I thought hunters are conservationists. Oh thats right.. most just pretend their giving back or protecting wild life/enviromment.

We can point our fingers and lay blame on everyone else for absolutely everything but it needs to start somewhere.

You know how many kills by those with tags, how many kills by those who don't have tags?

Oh, that might be a little harder to figure out hey? Why wouldn't the stewards of the land want to lead by example?

[bobalong]

Originally Posted by R3illy

There are 100 thousand+ kills done by those who are issued tags and you guys think theres no good in having harvest reports mandatory???

I thought hunters are conservationists. Oh thats right.. most just pretend their giving back or protecting wild life/enviromment.

We can point our fingers and lay blame on everyone else for absolutely everything but it needs to start somewhere.

The problem is "mandatory" doesn't include all people hunting and it is impossible to ensure accurate responses. So what the govt. will end up with is "something maybe close" or is the attitude "close is better than nothing"........not for me it isn't.

[R3illy]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

You know how many kills by those with tags, how many kills by those who don't have tags?

Oh, that might be a little harder to figure out hey? Why wouldn't the stewards of the land want to lead by example?

I love how petty of an argument this has become.. all the finger pointing at others while no one wants to take any responsibility or action amongst themself.

Should all kills be mandatory for everyone? Absolutely.

Regardless with 120000 hunters applying for tags the management could start with all the hunters who proudly pump their chest at every chance they get when they say they support conservation efforts.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by R3illy

I love how petty of an argument this has become.. all the finger pointing at others while no one wants to take any responsibility or action amongst themself.

Should all kills be mandatory for everyone? Absolutely.

Regardless with 120000 hunters applying for tags the management could start with all the hunters who proudly pump their chest at every chance they get when they say they support conservation efforts.

You're the one who brought the pettiness into the conversation.

It only makes sense that in order for such a program to be effective all hunters would have to participate. There may not be 120,000 hunters with a card, but the ones who do have a card take a substantial amount of animals, enough that it would have a significant effect on the numbers. If you can't see the logic there then you are color blind.

It's not about poor me, it's about wasting time and resources. If you only have 60% participation, you'll never get an accurate count to form an effective action plan.

Save the money and resources and just keep guessing, odds are they can guess about as accurately as a bogus harvest report.

[elkhunter11]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

You're the one who brought the pettiness into the conversation.

It only makes sense that in order for such a program to be effective all hunters would have to participate. There may not be 120,000 hunters with a card, but the ones who do have a card take a substantial amount of animals, enough that it would have a significant effect on the numbers. If you can't see the logic there then you are color blind.

It's not about poor me, it's about wasting time and resources. If you only have 60% participation, you'll never get an accurate count to form an effective action plan.

Save the money and resources and just keep guessing, odds are they can guess about as accurately as a bogus harvest report.

Non regulated hunters do not obey bag limits, and they don't hunt only during the season, so one unregulated hunter may kill as many animals as ten regulated hunters do in some wmus. So even if only 5% of the hunters in a certain area are unregulated hunters, they may kill 40% or 50% of the animals harvested in that wmu. That makes any data based on the harvest reports of only regulated hunters worthless. Nobody with a clue would spend time and money compiling worthless data?

[Birchcraft]

If the concern is to keep better record of wildlofe inventories why is there no system or rules for mandatory recording of any game species mowed over by vehicles? Sure we know what ends up on the shoulder but what about any that wander just a bit further?

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by Birchcraft

If the concern is to keep better record of wildlofe inventories why is there no system or rules for mandatory recording of any game species mowed over by vehicles? Sure we know what ends up on the shoulder but what about any that wander just a bit further?

There was s thread a couple months back that had those stats. Not sure how accurate it is but they do record those numbers.

[58thecat]

Originally Posted by R3illy

There are 100 thousand+ kills done by those who are issued tags and you guys think theres no good in having harvest reports mandatory???

I thought hunters are conservationists. Oh thats right.. most just pretend their giving back or protecting wild life/enviromment.

We can point our fingers and lay blame on everyone else for absolutely everything but it needs to start somewhere.

Your right but if we don't then the hammerheads who implement such a ridiculous inaccurate waste of money survey might, just might rethink and implement a better data gathering system.

Gotta think outside the box sometimes to overcome bs.

[Birchcraft]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

There was s thread a couple months back that had those stats. Not sure how accurate it is but they do record those numbers.

yeah like i said they know what ends up on the shoulder but what about the ones that end up 100-200 yards in the bush? most oilfiled and log haulers have bumpers that make it so hitting a moose or elk is nothing, just keep on driving. and with some of the guys covering 100's of miles all night long its almost a game to some of them they dont even try to avoid any.

[Outdoorfanatic]

Originally Posted by charves

I think this has to start somewhere.


The more annual data that can be collected, the more easily trends can be identified and accounting for false reporting can be more easily addressed and compensated for.

We are so lucky to have the amount of species and variety of hunting we have.....and to keep it that way, data collecting is even more important.

At least it's an attempt to do something that is trying to make hunting better and monitoring harvest as best possible in Alberta.

If the regs stated that the government has passed a policy that it will NEVER do harvest reports for anyone hunting in Alberta, there'd be mass complaints of how the government is contributing to the decimation of animal numbers and our hunting opportunities.

So in my opinion, it's a choice contribute to the system or not, but if not...then no complaining.

Same idea as this: If you don't vote in an election, then you can't complain about the government.

The monitoring system isn't perfect and likely never will be, but we should all be pressuring each other to contribute to make it the best it can be.

If we don't try.....then nothing will change!

You're kind of missing the point. Any data you provide that doesn't include FN reporting and at the same time continues to be tied to aerial surveys can be interpreted anyway the loudest agenda chooses.

So harvest reports will be tied to the tags you purchase on the relm site. Reporting a failed harvest is a report. So for example I just purchased an undersubscribed elk tag for January. So it has happen before where we go in January and see 300 head of elk in day light. Good right? Promising but their hold up in posted land. End of hunt comes no shots fired, 5 days of hunting for 3-4 guys and we're skunked. So if I filled that information out on a harvest report does that mean that elk numbers are low since we didn't shoot one? Or does it mean we don't have enough hunters to achieve the harvest/data desired? So some groups will say a priority 20 with a 10% harvest rate is too high. However if the CWD agenda or the Caribou agenda or the Suffield agenda are the number one issues of the day then various groups will say that a priority 1 with a 70% harvest rate is not enough. So the question is how do we as hunters maintain quality control and transparency regarding tag allocations?

[bowhunter9841]

Originally Posted by elkchaser

1 if the biologists are doing there job we shouldn’t have too !
2. Why don’t that police people that put in for draws but never by tags !
3 . What if you don’t actually have a computer . I buy my tags at the counter and only have a IPAD NEVER BEEN ABLE TO COMPLETE ONE IN YEARS .

I apply for draws and do all my hunting surveys on my iPhone. You don’t need a computer to fill out the surveys. It literally takes like 5-10 minutes to complete all my surveys for the year. It’s not like they’re asking us to go to check in stations to report our harvests!

I would have to say that the biologists are probably curious about more than just harvest numbers, they can do a pre-season aerial survey of the area to come up with estimated numbers. However, they aren’t going to be able to tell how many animals were harvested through hunting, or killed by motor vehicles, or just winterkill, unless we report our harvests. I may get ridiculed for saying this, but I think the harvest reports are a good idea.

I do agree with the above statements, that we need to include all methods of harvest though. First Nations, outfitters, etc. The only thing that really bugs me about the reports is that I commonly end up having to say NO to the “did you harvest an animal under the use of this license” question.

[Outdoorfanatic]

So bowhunter your in favour of Mandatory Harvest Reports, tell us from a biology stand point is a zero harvest on priority 1 good or bad? Or how about 5% harvest on priority 15? Now we're not talking as a hunter but as a biologist who receives pressure from the anti hunter as well as the ranchers as well as First Nations as well as Municipalities etc....Oh ya and the aerial survey money is just about a thing of the past.

[bobalong]

Originally Posted by bowhunter9841

I apply for draws and do all my hunting surveys on my iPhone. You don’t need a computer to fill out the surveys. It literally takes like 5-10 minutes to complete all my surveys for the year. It’s not like they’re asking us to go to check in stations to report our harvests!

I would have to say that the biologists are probably curious about more than just harvest numbers, they can do a pre-season aerial survey of the area to come up with estimated numbers. However, they aren’t going to be able to tell how many animals were harvested through hunting, or killed by motor vehicles, or just winterkill, unless we report our harvests. I may get ridiculed for saying this, but I think the harvest reports are a good idea.

I do agree with the above statements, that we need to include all methods of harvest though. First Nations, outfitters, etc. The only thing that really bugs me about the reports is that I commonly end up having to say NO to the “did you harvest an animal under the use of this license” question.

So you admit that you know the govt. will probably not have accurate counts from predation, vehicle kills, winterkill, FN, outfitters, and not all hunters but you still think the harvest reports are a good idea.

[Bushrat]

Harvest Report is one indicator, nothing more. When hunter kill reports go up it is an indicator that populations are up, it will indicate that vehicle wildlife collisions, FN kills, Outfitter kills will most likely also be up. When harvest reports go down it indicates the opposite. Problem is it's reactionary as opposed to proactive, somewhat anecdotal and hunter success is also quite dependent on weather as far as amount of hunters hunting and number of days they hunt.(which is why they ask how many days hunted on the survey in an attempt to extrapolate those into meaningful figures). It includes a lot of lag time from when populations go down to when they actually figure out the need to do something. It does nothing to indicate attrition from winter kill, predation or disease which is always a fly in the ointment of reliable predictability. A better system of monitoring ungulate and predator populations is necessary, unfortunately that takes money the gov't is not willing to allocate.

[Big Grey Wolf]

Our hunter license $$$ was suppose to go to ACA to do ungulate animal surveys. Kleiken wanted it to go into General Revenue, however his wise cabinet settled for using it to pay farmers for wolf and bear kills. Now ACA also wastes our hunter $$$ doing bat studies.

[West O'5]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

Good luck gett9ng all harvesters to participate.

Originally Posted by Kurt505

Read post 11 and maybe you'll understand.

I agree it is a petty kindergarten move that so and so won't agree to fill out a harvest report. Do you know how many hundreds or even thousands of moose so and so's kill every year?

Me either, but it's not just 10 or 20 it's hundreds, or more likely thousands. Don't you think that would be a just little helpful information in order to get a remotely accurate count?

Seriously???

From the perspective of someone who has lived in a province with mandatory registration of deer,moose,and bear(NB) I'd say it has its pros and cons?

-NB has a very healthy black bear population with relatively limited hunting pressure from locals,most of whom consider bears trash animals or nuisance at best.In fact,just in recent years the annual bag limit was raised from 1 back up to 2 bears/year because they are underhunted.The harvest stats reveal that the majority of bears in NB are tagged by non-res aliens from the eastern seaboard USA.

-With mandatory registration,NB bios know exactly how many deer and the sex of them are harvested legally by regulated hunters,and the "un-regulated" hunters seem to be more interested in moose,so not a real huge concern there?A certain percentage of registration stations are biological registration stations where samples/jawbones are collected and aged,weights and sex recorded etc.
The pros is,this is valuable info in determining the size of the deer herd,age structure,overall Heath etc.,and we know how many deer are being taken.
The sad thing is,this data reveals a desperately crashing herd on Crown land in particular (NB is 50% Crown and another 20% Industrial freehold timber) due mainly to deforestation and the subsequent herbicide spraying of softwood plantations,which makes regen clear cuts inhospitable to ungulates and pretty much anything other then red squirrels.😥
NB's deer herd has crashed from the peak glory days in the 1980s of 250,000
head and annual harvest:success rate of 30,000+/25% success,to an estimated 60-70K with an annual harvest of only 6-7K deer and success rates hovering around only 10% with 3 weeks of bow followed by 4 weeks of General firearms hunting.Its been heartbreaking to witness,and even more so frustrating at the lack of government will to do anything about it or take on the lumber giants that are turning the entire province into a softwood tree farm devoid of game.😡😤
-The annual 5 day moose hunt is even more strictly monitored,with registration checkpoints taking jaw samples and nose measurements for weight calculation formula from all moose.That said,the "unregulated hunters" have ignored repeated requests to provide harvest data,they simply outright refuse for wutever reason?Not sure if they actually feel somehow threatened,or if it's just another way for them to say "#*€£ you whitey!",but they refuse to cooperate in the sustainable management of the resource.
So that being the case,the bios are forced to set moose quotas for the rest of us very conservatively,because they have no idea really how many moose the Keepers of the Land are taking.
The average wait time to draw a coveted moose tag in NB is approx 15 years,but those lucky enough to draw one of 4500-ish(?) annual tags enjoy a 70-80% success rate over the course of 5 day hunt.With such a respectable success rate,I would think that there's room for a lot more moose hunting opportunities for NB residents and non-res alike,but agin...the unregulated harvesters won't cooperate so the bios are forced to keep tag quotas on the conservative side of sustainable using their "best guess" as a benchmark.....frustrating.😖

[Outdoorfanatic]

So "more harvest is an indicator of more wildlife", not necessarily. If I go after cow elk in January and see 300 head in posted land and hunt 5 days and go home skunked; my failed harvest doesn't reflect the 300 head sighted. And as the previous forum member stated the case in NB is priority 16 for moose but a 70% plus harvest in 5 days, why? Well the FN refuse to participate. So the bios are forced to cater to them by maintaining an absurdly high safety % which is a complete guess. Very similar to our walleye tags now. So question is are we willingly and ready to be penalized for not filling out harvest reports knowing full well that our data is most likely contributing to the demise of our hunting opportunity?

[Bushrat]

Originally Posted by Outdoorfanatic

So "more harvest is an indicator of more wildlife", not necessarily. If I go after cow elk in January and see 300 head in posted land and hunt 5 days and go home skunked; my failed harvest doesn't reflect the 300 head sighted.

You also probably saw many of the same elk everyday to make up the 300 total you sighted.The law of averages applies. It is made up for by the guy who goes out on the back forty every opening day and shoots the first 3 point elk in the same place at daybreak every year. He's at one end of the spectrum, your are at the other. The vast majority in between those ends does give the average success rate and average number of days hunted, that is if everyone who hunts is honest when filling out their report. I think we all agree the system is very flawed, far from perfect but it is all we have. It's a little better than flipping a coin, heads we have a season, tails we don't.

[Lefty-Canuck]

Most aerial surveys are done in the late winter months, with snow on the ground and leaf cover minimal. Preseason aerial surveys are not effective, other than for antelope and mountain goats...they tend to be out in the open.

LC

[marky_mark]

I really don’t think we want to know the extent of native hunting.
I have a feeling it would be higher than what we think and would probably reduce a ton of draws and tags being issued to hunters
If we dont the ability to control the native harvest I’m not sure we want to know their impact

[bluetick]

So do you not believe there are anti people and groups out there buying up tags and making false reports ? The easiest way to stop a hunt is to report many kills in a given area thus we have over harvesting and everything is on a draw and the tags are limited as we see now !!!!
Same goes for guys not reporting a harvest when in deed there was a harvest ,Now your numbers are low and more tags Would be issued , Either way the system is a MESS and that hasn't touched on unregulated hunters or guys with no computer or computer skills.
Just another way to herd the sheep in for slaughter ,we all follow because someone told us we have to .

[dicknormal]

Originally Posted by bluetick

I am having a hard time swallowing a force fed reporting system ! This is a true license killer .
We all know there a large number of draws placed by and awarded to anti groups or individuals.
This will ensure we are getting false numbers on kill reports causing the biologist to believe the numbers of animals killed are too great ,therefore reducing licenses available in many areas.
I have a feeling this is already occurring and believe it will get worse . I also believe many reports may be false ,I am not convinced everyone reporting their harvests are being 100 percent honest.

So if this is happening anybody that draws a tag then doesn't purchase said tag should not be eligible to apply for or 99 that draw for two maybe three years.

[fishnguy]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

I really don’t think we want to know the extent of native hunting.
I have a feeling it would be higher than what we think and would probably reduce a ton of draws and tags being issued to hunters
If we dont the ability to control the native harvest I’m not sure we want to know their impact

What if it is the other way around? We assume that their annual harvest is "up there". What if in reality it is much lower than we imagine? Would you like to know then?

Originally Posted by bluetick

So do you not believe there are anti people and groups out there buying up tags and making false reports ? The easiest way to stop a hunt is to report many kills in a given area thus we have over harvesting and everything is on a draw and the tags are limited as we see now !!!!
Same goes for guys not reporting a harvest when in deed there was a harvest ,Now your numbers are low and more tags Would be issued , Either way the system is a MESS and that hasn't touched on unregulated hunters or guys with no computer or computer skills.
Just another way to herd the sheep in for slaughter ,we all follow because someone told us we have to .

How is it that everyone knows that antis are participating in draws and by large numbers? I, for one, do not know that. I agree, I do not know many things, but it is hard to believe this is one of them.

Reporting a "huge" number of kills in the area would indicate a healthy animal population, especially if the large number is reported on continuous basis. Some sudden spike in the area will call for further investigation.

If no harvest is reported, it would indicate that the population is in trouble and further investigation is required and a potential cut in tags allocation for the particular species in that WMU.

Overall, I am not really sure how hard it is to spend one minute of your time to fill out and submit the report. They are not really asking for a pin to your debit card. Something about if you want a change, start with yourself and bother about others after.

Also, what Bushrat said.

[Outdoorfanatic]

So you don't believe that the Anti hunter group is aware of hunting draws and actively trying to disrupt the draw system? Well Wyoming is managing a limit draw Grizzley bear hunt and the Antis have come out in public and declared that they intend to draw as many tags as possible and just sit on them. Native groups in BC have declared that Moose allocations in certain regions should be all but eliminated for the recreational hunter.

The issue here is how do we qualify the hunter harvest data reports to maintain equal or greater influence over the allocations as that of the other groups. For those of you who believe that more harvest will be translated as healthy wildlife numbers; who's to say that if these other groups become more vocal that the interpretation won't be that the harvest is oblivious to high and needs to be dramatically reduced. The problem here is that the collection and interpretation of the data is not scientific its all politics. I'm afraid the recreational hunter is the last group that any political party cares about.

[fishnguy]

^ I don't know about Wyoming, to be honest. I don't know anything about their regulations either. Neither do I know anything about their reporting system, if any exists there at all. In fact, I know nothing about hunting in Wyoming aside from what I read on this forum.

I know some about here in Alberta though. What kind of tags the antis are going to pull? Antlerless mule deer? Buy whatever many general tags? Maybe win a moose draw now and then... I am not sure how their thinking goes and obviously some of them are not exactly, what one would call, straight thinking people. However, tags that do make a difference here in Alberta take a long time to get. Sure, one could be entering draws for an antlerless elk in, for example, 523 and getting a tag every or every other year. Who cares? The logic suggests that no one would be entering a draw for an antelope that takes years to get in hopes to just screw things up. Obviously there are better things and probably more effective for them to put their time in being an anti. Don't forget about the fact that you can't really put in a draw or buy a tag unless you passed the hunting course and got your certificate or whatever number. That obviously takes a few bucks and time. I am sure there could be people crazy enough to go through all that and enter a draw for 10 years straight to pull a tag and sit on it and be happy about it, but I am also sure that there aren't many.

Sure, they could enter a bison (not anymore, I guess) or goat draws and pull a tag or two, but, again, it is not significant and makes no difference whatsoever here in Alberta.

Are they going to buy all the general tags they can afford to buy? Sure, go ahead.

What I am trying to say is that it is not smart and completely impractical buying a bunch of tags or waiting years to buy a few and hoping to make a difference. It does not matter on the big scale of things and resources can be spent in more productive ways than buying tags or hoping to win a draw. Make the tag purchase mandatory if one wins a draw and the likelihood of what you are saying is happening decreases even more. Just like they did with the undersubscribed tags this year: you want a tag, buy it straight up. At least that is what I understood from the email a while back.

Overall, it is pretty easy to protest in front of some meat shop, but it is not that easy to get the hunting certificate, buy a tag/enter a draw, fill out the report, etc. Also, don't forget that it is one tag per person.

One can probably compare it to the number of people complaining right here on this forum and out in real life about the garbage imbeciles leave behind and the number of people who actually go out and clean it up. And I am not talking about pick up a bottle or two on the way out of the bush. I am talking about actually making a trip with the purpose of garbage collection. I participated in such events and I can tell you straight up that there aren't that many volunteers.

Anyway, to conclude the anti part of my post, and it is only my view and it could be completely wrong, I think it is dumb to buy tags in hopes of making a change and I don't believe it is happening right here in Alberta on a grand scale. I do allow for the fact that there are a few insane and dedicated people who are willing to go through all the trouble, but they don't make any difference in how tags are allocated.

As quantifying and qualifying the data, I actually made an effort just now to go through all the posts in this thread and I have not seen a single one saying that I know for a fact that these reports are used for this and that. I did see a lot of complaining about the native harvest (fair point) and stuff along the lines of these posts:

Originally Posted by bobalong

I am not sure how many surveys, reports etc. you are familiar with but when has the govt. even once actually listened to what hunters are trying to tell them.

Originally Posted by elkchaser

1 if the biologists are doing there job we shouldn’t have too !

Lol. To the first quote, they are asking straight up for licensed hunters to participate and report their harvest, yet one refuses to provide a report and says no one listens. There is a pretty good joke on the subject, actually:

A guy, about to drown, is floating in the middle of an ocean and keeps praying "Oh God, please help me". All of a sudden, there is a huge log floats right in front of him and the guy says "I am not going to grab on to the log, the God will help me. Oh God, please help me!" Then there is a small beat up boat passes right by and the guy says "Nah, God will help me. Oh God, please help me!!" Finally, there is a ship passes by and the crew throws a rope to the guy and they yell to him "Grab the rope, we will pull you in". To which the guy replies "Screw you, God will help me." Obviously, the dude drowns. On the other side, he asks the God "Why didn't you help me?". The God replies "Are you ****ing nuts? I sent you a log, a boat and a ****ing ship!!!"

As to the second quote... Well, they are doing their job. They are asking you to provide some data about your hunting in a given year. I agree though, we should sit on our asses and complain about how someone is not doing their job.

Like I said in my previous post, if you want a change, start with yourself!

Complaining about the Natives won't do a squat either. Do what you think is right and be better then "them". Showing as much ignorance and a "**** you" attitude won't get us far as a society.

The good thing is I know that at least some of the people responding negatively in this very thread do actually fill out reports. For example, I know elkhunter11 does because I read his comment a while back about keeping the feathers of the pheasants he took to keep the count for reporting; I started doing the same with grouse. It was a good advice.

I am pretty sure I could have done something more satisfying to me than writing this post, but it is too late and it has been written and time (hopefully not) wasted. Lol.

[jcrayford]

I'm pretty sure that all of us, in some way or another work with datasets in our daily lives & industries. Doesn't matter if you're in the O&G industry or health industry or the underwater basket weaving industry.

The one and only true common component of all of these industries / ways of life is this:

"Sh!t data in, sh!t data out"

There is absolutely no way under the current policies of reporting / non-reporting that accurate numbers will be represented, as there are no hard rules for ALL users to submit information period. Until that point in time, the data is useless period.

While I agree that the numbers need a starting point, there will never be 100% compliance (which is what's needed for any type of analysis) and therefore, the tag allocation will always be skewed.

I certainly don't have the answers and I'm not naïve enough to think there will ever be a solution. But to penalize one user group (registered hunters that take the time to report) with lower tag allocations because the occasional aerial survey shows that the numbers of game aren't sufficient to support tag numbers while other groups (FN / APOS) go unchecked is ludicrous. Which is why I will be voting again in the upcoming election so that I can continue to rant like I have above...

(Boy, talk about a train wreck of thoughts early on in the morning....)

J.

[59whiskers]

Right on the money Jcrayford.