Paid Hunting in Alberta?

[Bull Shooter]

Lurch – Thanks for the due diligence. I will post any reply I get back from Dr. Morton. Regards, Mike

[Jamie]

Lurch. Thanks for getting that info.
Could you please post up exactly what the new initiatives are going to be? (Or as close as you understand them). I re read your original post, and I cant figure out what plan the Gov is going with.

Thanks
Jamie

[Pathfinder76]

deleted

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[Rust]

This is an e-mail I got this morning.

There are two very limited pilot projects planned under the banner of
"Alberta Open Spaces". One will look at a "walk-in" access management
program on the Montana model where participating landowners will receive
payments based on the number of hunter recreation days on their land. The
other is a split tag program for very large land block (60,000 acres plus)
where the rancher will get a number of tags (which can then be sold to
outfitters or residents) based on managing wildlife for growth on the land -
the other side of that is that the land must be open to resident hunters,
which in many situations is not the present case. Both are designed to
increase access and expand wildlife numbers.

There are many details to be worked out and the pilots will be judged, in
large part, on resident satisfaction.

Call me if you have any further questions.

Cheers!
Colin Reichle
Colin W. Reichle, Managing Director
Alberta Professional Outfitters Society
#103, 6030 - 88 Street
Edmonton, Alberta T6E 6G4
Tel: 780.414.0249
Fax: 780.465.6801
E-mail: colin@apos.ab.ca
Web: www.apos.ab.ca

I just got off the phone with colin. My understanding about the "walk-in" access is that there will be a sign in area and landowners would be compinsated according to the log book. (hunted days) BY the gov. (I did not ask about a dollar figure)
And the tag/permit program. The landowner will be able to sell to an outfitter/resident or become an outfitter himself. BUt as said above he MUST allow residents access as well. THis will only apply to ppl with at least 60,000 acres or more and must be consecutive acres.
He said It will be a 5 yr pilot program.

Thats what I know at this point.
Rust.

[Pathfinder76]

deleted

Good for them this will catch on and spread like wild fire it is there land and they can do as they please .I would bet that alot of people will loose there hot spots unless they pay big $$$$ .I for one wouldnt pay to go on anyone's land i will stick to Crown Land and when that gets to crowed i would stop Hunting until then happy hunting .

[bruceba]

Not long ago I mentioned that several guides were leasing prime land around the ridge and controlling access. So will they get the landowner tags to deal with if the land owner aquires them for the outfitter. Any body have the answer.

[Duk Dog]

If there is truth to tags being issued to certain landowners to sell who would manage that? Is the price set in stone, or can they be sold for what ever the market bears? What regular resident could compete with outfitters if there is no cap on the tag fee? (if in fact there is no fee cap)
There sure are a lot of unknowns and lots of questions to be answered or provided.

[Bull Shooter]

Originally Posted by Duk Dog

If there is truth to tags being issued to certain landowners to sell who would manage that? Is the price set in stone, or can they be sold for what ever the market bears? What regular resident could compete with outfitters if there is no cap on the tag fee? (if in fact there is no fee cap)
There sure are a lot of unknowns and lots of questions to be answered or provided.

I hear you Duk.

If this proves to be a profitable venture for the subscribing landowner(s) I guess it will only be a matter of time before adjacent landowners, having less than 60,000 acres (if that benchmark is correct), mount a court challenge to the discriminatory or unfair practices of the Provincial Government.

If the Government’s justification is that these tracts of land did not have access before this pilot, I can imagine several landowners shutting down public access to drive similar deals. Where do you draw the line? Regards, Mike

[Cordur]

Well, gee.... Sometimes I feel like there are problems with the current government that won't change without an election. But there is no way in hell this will be temporary. There will be people claiming the loss of income, loss of rights, etc... I've participated in the Walleye tag idea for its first two years and at this point I don't think too much of it. Seemed nice at first since you could tag a couple of fish to eat. But this last year there wasn't much point. You had access to the boat launch but there weren't enough camping lots to hold even half of the people who wanted to be out there. Tell me where did the money go that a sold out for the summer camp ground plus the money from the tags go to make this a better place for any Albertan?

Now you want to allow guys to buy up every scrap of land they can get their hands on so they can sell the tags off of it? Are these people out of their minds? I know exactly what they will say too. "The market will take care of itself." BS!!! We aren't talking about taxi cab licenses here. If this were only available to Albertans that would be one thing. But we all know that the people who will want to take advantage of these hunts are the same people who have been screwed out of it in their own areas by initiatives like this. Do you really think someone from Texas comes up here to hunt because it worked out so well in their home state? My advice would be to start looking after the people in this province, outfitters and joe hunter. As far as I know we still pay for the majority of the hunting going on here and it's about G#$D@%& time the money we spend and the votes we cast start benefiting us!

Lets say you have a truck for sale that you would like to get cash for. After a little while you don't get a buyer but someone comes along and offers to trade you for a car. You don't really need a car but you might consider the trade if it was in your favor. Say you wanted $20,000 for your truck and were offered a car worth $30,000 it might be worth it. Well this initiative seems to me like we have been wanting changes made so that more access could be opened up for us resident hunters. But instead someone decided to offer us better opportunities for paid hunting and you can try to guess where you're allowed to hunt. News flash! We can already buy this service from a guide or outfitter! The only thing this does is allow an unscrupulous landowner to make a bit of extra cash. Tags sold to the highest bidder is not what is needed.

I'm probably going to re-read some of what I said and realize not all of this is valid. Some of you will point out the benefits of what is going ahead and I'll likely agree with some of it. But there have been some really good suggestions made that will be better for Albertans in general and those are the ones that should matter to us as a hunting community.

[MathewsArcher]

Less opportunities for residents, more money for APOS.........funny how that works.

Try and get access it will work as well as grazing lease land controlled by an outfitter, no access unless your on the list.

Originally Posted by MathewsArcher

Less opportunities for residents, more money for APOS.........funny how that works.

Try and get access it will work as well as grazing lease land controlled by an outfitter, no access unless your on the list.

I am not against anyone makeing money .
When the people who make those hunting show's in the U.S.A and in Canada get wind of this that list will get bigger.It will be the ideal thing for them.

[MathewsArcher]

All with the loss of resident hunting opportunities........

[dogpound]

There are not too many landowners that own over 60,000 acres - that tells me this guy(s) is a very good lobbyist.

The allocating of tags for the landowner is almost embarrasingly corrupt. As a landowner I would definately not want more crap to do during hunting season. This would leave me to believe that someone with over 60,000 acres in favor of this is actually in the business of hunting and the government is aiding in the establishment of game ranches.

Not many landowners I know (of course they only own a couple of sections or less) would find these points helpful in increasing authorized access. Typical landowners are not motivated by $10.00 per head or the headache of allocating tags or maintaining logbooks of usage. The reason the majority of landowners are starting to limit or prohibit access has more to do with the problems that arise from the minority of disrespectful hunters that are abusing private land/property, poaching, trespassing etc..

Owning land is already a pain in the ass during hunting season.

This sounds a lot like the classification of rivers in B.C.. The guide association was the main lobby behind that new regulation. They ended up with assets, "rod days" they could buy or sell as they saw fit. It had nothing to do with the improving the experience or helping trout populations.

Originally Posted by Carolyn

I am not against anyone makeing money .
When the people who make those hunting show's in the U.S.A and in Canada get wind of this that list will get bigger.It will be the ideal thing for them.

I don't think most people would trade resident hunter tags for profits to guys that make hunting videos

[Vindalbakken]

The kicker in that document is that there will be no direct compensation by hunters to landowners. That does not cover indirect compensation through outfitters, which I am sure the APOS is well aware of. They have always been looking for some way to legally pay landowners for secure access.

We absolutely do not need landowners selling permits. We didn't need outfitters owning permits either but look where we got with arguing that one.

[Jamie]

I am most interested to hear what the exact thought proccess was on this whole deal. I have sent off a Email to someone who should be in the know. I will report back what they say.

Jamie

[bruceba]

Throw into the equation that there is going to be a bull Elk season in 108 in 2008. Sucks to be anyone except if your connected.
I've said it for several years now. Watch the back door while the Government smoke screens the front door with subsistance headlines. APOS is your first and real threat next to the Government SRD office.

[harv3589]

I have said it before...we should goto the same system as Sask and if the animals on a draw then no nonresident hunter's can hunt them. Outfitters should be limited also to the forestry and landowners should receive compensation for wildlife issues if they let hunters on as a management tool...if they don't, then no compensation or assistance will be given.

I am fine with them giving landowners tags but then set a that they can sell them for and they shouldn't be available to sell to outfitters at all...lets face it the outfitter will go into the prime areas and buy them up and lock up the place so no one else can hunt. Then when the landowner has problems with the wildlife eating hay and damaging crops they will come crying to the government for help. I understand it is their land but it is our wildlife not theirs.

Anyone that doesn't think that outfitters don't go in and lock up land and "compensate" the owner better wake up.

OF course APOS is involved they stand to benefit the most in this...no one can compete with what outfitters will pay for the tags which they will just charge back to some rich hunter.

This is bad news...

[bruceba]

It appears that one of the large ranches of the ridge in 108 has been asking for the ability to charge hunters for access for quite some time. They do the same on some iof their ranch holdings in th US. T. Morton has found a sneaky way to provide paid hunting by using the American style of allowing landholders to sell species licenses. It looks as thought the ranch will soon get their way – totally against the spirit of our Wildlife Act and against the philosophy of the Alberta Fish and Game Association.

[Rust]

I just got this one.

Rusty
A proposal has been put forward to test two programs as a five year pilot project and they are as you indicate: a walk on access program where a land owner will be reimbursed according to the number of recreation days of hunter use and another program where a percentage of tags will be given to a landowner or landowner association in exchange for providing hunting access. The purpose of the program is to reward landowners for wildlife production, habitat stewardship, and for providing access for hunting.

The details of how these programs will operate, such as landowner eligibility, contract conditions, compensation levels, and things like that have not been developed yet.

The questions that you asked that have been decided are: these pilot program will be located in Wildlife Management Units 108 and 300, in the southwest corner of Alberta; The permits allocated to landowners will come out of the resident permit quota.

The program details should be available in early spring 2008 and there will be communication to landowners at that time to get the pilot programs going.

Jim Allen
Head, Game and Priority Species
Wildlife Management Branch
9920 108 Street
Edmonton. T5K 2M4

Tel 780-427-4194, Fax 780-422-9557
Rocky office: 403-845-8237
Cell 403-844-0162
James.Allen@gov.ab.ca

[Duk Dog]

I'm still not sure what to make of all this just yet.

I'll throw something out there but include a big IF in front of it all. IF all of this is going down, and the larger (60,000) plus acre ranches are going to be the benefactors by selling tags it would be interesting to see if there have been any substantial campaign donations from these test WMUs or more specifically the larger ranches. IF they have the ability to sell tags I sure as heck hope they have a price cap on them. Some of the land owner tags in the USA that are considered to be top trophy areas are quite pricey.

[MathewsArcher]

Welcome to Texas folks. Definately looks like Alberta is going to go to an American style system where the hunter pays to hunt private land. Not sure how this will be limited once they open the door. Smaller operations are going to want the same benefits and I don't see how they could be withheld once the system is in place. Interesting how this was done in the dark, I never heard AFGA comment on this, did they even know, where stakeholders informed prior to the decision being made. Have to say the conservatives will loose my vote over this one.

[bruceba]

The questions that you asked that have been decided are: these pilot program will be located in Wildlife Management Units 108 and 300, in the southwest corner of Alberta; The permits allocated to landowners will come out of the resident permit quota

On a five year pilot project out of the RESIDENT PERMIT QUOTA"S. We're talking
Mule Deer, Antelope and Elk if we're talikng QUOTA"S. So then the guides will probably look after the tags for the owner, maximizing the dollar for the land owner and increasing the number of tags the guides have. Which increases the guide allocation in that WMU with out it appearing that way on paper.

[Chung66]

Originally Posted by MathewsArcher

Have to say the conservatives will loose my vote over this one.

X2!!!!!!!

[209x50]

Oh? And you'd vote for the gun/hunting loving NDP and Liberals? Oh, yeah that right they want to take our guns away. But I guess that doesn't mean they are anti hunting!

[bruceba]

I just heard the ink is already dry on this deal and it's locked in for 5 years.Correct me if I'm wrong but I just heard 25% of the resident allocations are involved.
I've told you before and I'll tell you again, WATCH THE BACK DOOR. The Government is playing the hunter population like a fiddle. They work you up about subsistence issue's and while your playing into their hands they slam through deals in the back door that do way more harm to you. Mark my words they will blow the Metis issue back in your face at the end of January or beginning of February so you will follow them like sheep once again and their agenda is APOS based when it comes to wildlife. I've seen both sides of the fence .

[harv3589]

The outfitters are going to be smiling ear to ear...they finally get what they want and can do it legally now with the bonus of more tags.

What a great selling feature for the outfitters and APOS, they can advertise that they have some of the best area locked up for their clients, no resident pressure.

This is unbelievable, never thought this would happen in Alberta.

[209x50]

Does anyone know for a fact if the outfitters can buy the tags directly from the land owner?