BuzzH
Well-known member
This issue was the exact reason why I joined the RCFWA as a life member even though I lived in Wyoming at the time. I was already seeing the hand writing on the wall and how it would impact the area I used to hunt. The only group that I saw taking action, and in no surprise, has had success in dealing with it, is tjones and his group. Everyone else ignored what was happening, they truly were the tip of the spear in trying to pump the brakes on the war on elk.
Too bad nobody else seemed to care at the time, and now only care because reality hit them square in the face.
I also agree that hunters are wayyy too slow on the uptake, mainly because every time another tag is offered or "more opportunity" they cant see what the impacts of that will be, only the additional opportunity. Of course the other dead elephant in the room is the "professionals" at the MTFWP who should be smart enough to recognize what will happen with multiple tags and 6 month seasons will have on elk. Not only in the number dead, but how that will impact behavior. As much as wildlife managers want you to believe that you need the wildlife biology decoder ring to know, you just don't. Its intuitively obvious, even to the most casual observer, that when you apply pressure to any population of animals they respond, elk in particular.
Having now listened to most of the testimony, its apparent these shoulder seasons are likely going to be expanded into public lands. That is insanity...these ranchers whine about how the elk jump the fence onto public land and now they want to "move them back onto private" so they can continue the slaughter or allow hunters to pound them on the public they escape to.
Great idea, discourage elk to stay on public land...the testimony and thought process is truly unbelievable. Silly me, I thought the whole idea was to discourage elk to use private and encourage them to stay on public. I mean, for hells sake it was one of the talking points in favor of shoulder seasons, to move elk back onto public.
Oh, and Ben Lamb, as much as I admire your wanting to think things can change in the future (don't completely disagree), to just ignore past practices, lies and deception from the Department isn't wise either. Past practices can predict future practices, in particular when you have FWP leadership that should have been fired decades ago, still on the job gumming things up though archaic season structures and pretending they're still managing in 1970. Still making excuses for piss poor management of big-game across the board, running around like mentally challenged parrots, "Polly want an opportunity cracker"...
How much support should I give the Department, when in public testimony, an FWP employee in a senior biology position, claims that they only know what they need to do if they have TOO many elk, but no idea what to do when there's too few?
SMH...
