Harvest reports....waste of research?

[LandlockedIslander]

Just looking at "optional" harvest reports through mywildalberta trying to find some place to go elk hunting this year and see an awful lot of 0% success rates. Curious how much stock we all put in these figures. Thanks for your thoughts.


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[JWCalgary]

I wouldn't say a waste. I'm going for my elk in a high percentage zone this year because that's where the data leads me. The 3 hour drive is not conducive to numerous scouting trips.

Hey if it's a fail then at least I can say I went for a good 4 day hike.

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[slickwilly]

Harvest reports work well... if there is enough data. Is it possible that there are zones with 0 elk killed.. yes. Is it also possible that a few people killed elk in there and didn't report it.. also yes. But does seeing a 1 or 2% success rate change the fact that is a low success zone, no. If there were lots of hunters, somebody would be reporting their kills.

[Cripler]

Killed an elk in zones with less then 6% success rate 3 out of the last 4 years. The year I did not harvest an elk. I built my house and could not put the time in to get it done. Find the elk and put the time in to give your self a chance. Make your own success rate.


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[husky7mm]

I would say there is error for sure, that said it does give you an idea of the elk population for that zone. I myself would not be shy to hunt a zone with little to no success if I had it mostly to myself. Elk leave all kinds of sign as to what they are doing and where they are going. Hunt the sign. You need to do year round scouting, get some cams out and get some data on them. The best zone to hunt elk is the closest one to where you live, whatever gets you out to the elk woods the fastest and most often. Success will be found when you have your local elk figured out, patterns will delevop and you will have an advantage that people that hunt for elk 5 days year will never have.

[husky7mm]

Originally Posted by Cripler

Killed an elk in zones with less then 6% success rate 3 out of the last 4 years. The year I did not harvest an elk. I built my house and could not put the time in to get it done. Find the elk and put the time in to give your self a chance. Make your own success rate.


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I like this.

[3blade]

Here's something to think about...if you were successful in a low percentage zone, and you didn't have to deal with crowds, would you report your success?

Also there have been many first hand accounts on this forum, of inaccuracy in the harvest reports. Ex. One year I killed a mulie doe in 248, and reported it correctly. Guess what the % was for antlerless mule deer that year? 0%. Even after I reported their error.

[The moose]

In 212 last year there was 12(?) reported does harvested. I know i reported 2 of them. That cant be right, can it? I think they are valid but with a grain of salt knowing some hunters choose to not respond or respond falsely

[nube]

The report is a total joke. So much I don't waste my time with it. Not sure what they are looking to accomplish.

[LandlockedIslander]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. It sounds like it is what I expected.


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[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by nube

The report is a total joke. So much I don't waste my time with it. Not sure what they are looking to accomplish.

As you know Nube, this information is used as critical data.
It is used for determining the number of licences issued, allocations issued to residents and outfitters, and when seasons are removed from general and made available by draw only,

Disturbing news when people high in Wildlife Policy admit that the information is statistically invalid, but is used as absolutely accurate anyways....

[The Fisherman Guy]

This is an argument that I have constantly with one of my best hunting friends.

He believes in it, I do not.

My points against:

-Not all kills are reported
-Zones with high success numbers correlate with high hunter volume
-Those who do not want to post a successful WMU to the public do not report
-Zones with high volume/success ratios are all in close proximity to large cities
-Draw entries are too dynamic to make a reasonable assumption, other than a lot of people hunted that WMU and the majority of them reported it.

[Big Grey Wolf]

Very easy to determine ratio of hunter reports to actual hunters when on a draw. They know if 80% of hunters actually report success as example. It still provides data for setting license numbers for a zone.

[elkhunter11]

Having taken part in conducting phone surveys many years ago for our archery club, I don't put much faith in the results. When I asked many people if they killed a moose that year, they replied that they did, but when I asked to confirm that they used their tag, the response was that another member of their hunting party actually killed the moose and tagged it. Comparing our success rate numbers among the club members conducting the poll, myself and a couple of other members had much lower success rates, which leads me to believe that some people were not asking specific enough to questions, and the people being called were so anxious to tell us that they killed a moose, that the same animal might have been reported by multiple people. The end result, was an artificially high success rate.

[iliketrout]

As The Fisherman Guy stated, there are a lot of uncontrolled variables that makes the accuracy of the report doubtful, but overall I think that it is a good indicator of population. I don't need to know that exactly 263 deer were shot, but I want to know if it is less than 100 or closer to 1000 for example.

The biggest downfall for me is that there is no indication on the harvest report the amount of effort it takes to fill a tag, even though that question is asked in the survey. Take 330 for example. We all know the deer sightings are way down and the amount of hunting pressure in that zone has got to be among the highest in the province. The harvest report doesn’t really reflect this – the reported harvest is down but it’s still one of the highest producing zones in the province, which I think is probably based on sheer number of hunting hours spent and not so much on the zone/habitat/deer population itself. If we are basing management targets on reported harvest only with no indication of effort, then are we setting up some zones for failure or population crashes?

I believe there is value in the report, but nothing beats scouting in person.

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by iliketrout

As The Fisherman Guy stated, there are a lot of uncontrolled variables that makes the accuracy of the report doubtful, but overall I think that it is a good indicator of population. I don't need to know that exactly 263 deer were shot, but I want to know if it is less than 100 or closer to 1000 for example.

The biggest downfall for me is that there is no indication on the harvest report the amount of effort it takes to fill a tag, even though that question is asked in the survey. Take 330 for example. We all know the deer sightings are way down and the amount of hunting pressure in that zone has got to be among the highest in the province. The harvest report doesn’t really reflect this – the reported harvest is down but it’s still one of the highest producing zones in the province, which I think is probably based on sheer number of hunting hours spent and not so much on the zone/habitat/deer population itself. If we are basing management targets on reported harvest only with no indication of effort, then are we setting up some zones for failure or population crashes?

I believe there is value in the report, but nothing beats scouting in person.

Or it could be that harvesting an animal in this zone is harder because the deer are not as easily found. Hunter and predator pressures do change prey behaviour.

These reports are not intended for hunter scouting purposes, while they can reveal some leading information.
The reports are mainly for management purposes, and as is the case now, the data in its current format is considered by F&W to be INVALID,
yet it is used anyways.

This IS a problem.

[nube]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

As you know Nube, this information is used as critical data.
It is used for determining the number of licences issued, allocations issued to residents and outfitters, and when seasons are removed from general and made available by draw only,

Disturbing news when people high in Wildlife Policy admit that the information is statistically invalid, but is used as absolutely accurate anyways....

The only stats I would ever think are close to accurate would be for sheep and I think they shut that down years ago. I used to look way back when I was a kid at the magazine when it came out that had the stats to look to see where they sheep were getting shot.
These stats now don't work and are not accurate. How can it be accurate when u get a large percentage not filling them out ( from what I suspect) and also how do we even know they are correct.

Take for instance bird stats. I actually filled mine out and laughed the whole way through it. Did they expect me to remember every hunt I did in the fall and in what WMU and how many birds of each species I shot? lol lol Good Luck. I did the best I could but really the best I could do is not even close to what the correct answer should be.
Then I started to do my Big game stats and said that it was a waste of time. I couldn't remember how many days I was out and in what WMU for those days either. I suspect most people are the same. They go hunt when they can and don't keep track of numbers of days and even don't know number of harvested critters either at times like for birds.....

Then there are the guys that won't fill it out properly to expose where the good hunting WMU is as well.....
Too many what if's and I won't be filling any out in the future unless I have to

[nube]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

Having taken part in conducting phone surveys many years ago for our archery club, I don't put much faith in the results. When I asked many people if they killed a moose that year, they replied that they did, but when I asked to confirm that they used their tag, the response was that another member of their hunting party actually killed the moose and tagged it. Comparing our success rate numbers among the club members conducting the poll, myself and a couple of other members had much lower success rates, which leads me to believe that some people were not asking specific enough to questions, and the people being called were so anxious to tell us that they killed a moose, that the same animal might have been reported by multiple people. The end result, was an artificially high success rate.

Exactly! Waste of time and energy and money

[MugEye]

I believe the reports are completely wrong. I'm thinking about 25% of harvest are actually reported.