How would you rate our current fish and wildlife management system

[Kurt505]

I was just curious as to how the forum members feel our current fish and wildlife management system ranks. Are you satisfied with the decisions made by our environment and parks minister?

[wildwoods]

It's not just the minister for me. I took option 3.
I am blown away at how our fishing is "managed". Hunting needs some major work too.

[Dubious]

The only species that seem to be doing well right now are wolves cougars black bear and whitetail. Gold fish crayfish and carp also seem well managed. There needs to be management changes in our habitat loss and wild game resources.

[ghostguy6]

Id say its a total joke, no real improvements after decades of management. Walleye numbers may be up in some lakes but at the expense of other species, and even the quality of the walleye themselves. Sure you might catch 50 a day but they are all stunted. Out of province hunters have more harvest opportunities than the resident hunters. We manage out predators by protecting them and denying their actual numbers.

[last minute]

Well you know the old saying if you don't like something change it.

So I guess that means working for the government to make the changes to Wildlife Management as desired.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by last minute

Well you know the old saying if you don't like something change it.

So I guess that means working for the government to make the changes to Wildlife Management as desired.

I really wish that was an option.

At this point I think our best hope is to elect a new government and hope the newly appointed minister will take conservation and management seriously with our conserving our resources and coming up with a proper management plan as a main priority.


By just a preliminary look at the responses it seems 50% of us outdoorsmen are 100% unsatisfied with the way our resources are being managed. Obviously something major has to change.

[ghostguy6]

Originally Posted by last minute

Well you know the old saying if you don't like something change it.

So I guess that means working for the government to make the changes to Wildlife Management as desired.

But which one of us is qualified to work for the government? Anyone that possess a lick of common sense is automatically excluded from any government jobs. You'd have to be extra special before you would be placed in a position where your opinion actually mattered.

[Kurt505]

I’ve been speaking with fellow outdoorsmen in my travels, besides the members here on the forum, and even farmers who don’t hunt, no one I’ve spoken with has seemed to understand what our fish and wildlife management team is thinking in how they determine when to put which animals on draw, how many tags will be allotted or retention of fish and draws on fish. It’s like a bunch of clueless people who figure through enough trial and error they might luck into a proper management plan.

When it comes to fish or wildlife, the Alberta government has dropped the ball and it’s costing Alberta outdoorsmen opportunities. Walleye and moose are two areas that really need addressing, with the poor decisions made on these two spicies it’s already affecting other species as a result.

[Bigwoodsman]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I really wish that was an option.

At this point I think our best hope is to elect a new government and hope the newly appointed minister will take conservation and management seriously with our conserving our resources and coming up with a proper management plan as a main priority.


By just a preliminary look at the responses it seems 50% of us outdoorsmen are 100% unsatisfied with the way our resources are being managed. Obviously something major has to change.

Agreed!
But I think we’ll see more of the same with whomever is in charge. Alberta hasn’t had a wildlife management worth a crap in the past 60 years!

BW

[Fish along]

My beef is with the cormorant and other predators that come in after, these small lakes have been stocked and destroy everything, surely something can be done,it's pointless to keep doing this if the end result is always going to be the same.

[3blade]

A major problem is, as it frequently is, the split between provincial and federal jurisdiction. You cannot have one group with federally permitted unlimited harvesting rights and then tell the provinces to ‘manage’ wildlife. The results are predetermined, everything that exists on public land gets wiped out.

That being said, every provincial government (including fat Ralph and his grizzly hunt ban, don’t pretend this is only a current problem) has thrown resident hunters under the bus.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Fire everyone and start over. You want to have any management input regarding a game animal as a bio, you have to have hunted and killed three of that species. No exceptions or excuses.

[Kurt505]

I really wish we could all agree to band together and not buy fishing or hunting licenses. That would send a statement that we don’t agree with what they’re doing with our resources. If they won’t listen to our concerns why do we keep paying them?

[^v^Tinda wolf^v^]

I have never ever been bothered by them. Good?
I did have a bully cop search my truck for deer one day however. Mr flexy muscles with the clock tattoo on his bisep. Give me a break...

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by ^v^Tinda wolf^v^

I have never ever been bothered by them. Good?
I did have a bully cop search my truck for deer one day however. Mr flexy muscles with the clock tattoo on his bisep. Give me a break...

I wasn’t referring to law enforcement, I was referring to the law makers.

[^v^Tinda wolf^v^]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I wasn’t referring to law enforcement, I was referring to the law makers.

My bad, I’m very tired and not high.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by ^v^Tinda wolf^v^

My bad, I’m very tired and not high.

There’s ways to fix that 😁

[wildwoods]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I really wish we could all agree to band together and not buy fishing or hunting licenses. That would send a statement that we don’t agree with what they’re doing with our resources. If they won’t listen to our concerns why do we keep paying them?

I’m right there with this walleye draw disaster. I will not be purchasing them anymore. It’s a joke beyond belief.

Someone mentioned sask for fishing in another thread. Me thinks I’ll take my tackle and bounce jigs and pull cranks over there.
Wabasca was the last straw for me. Stupid stupid stupid

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by wildwoods

I’m right there with this walleye draw disaster. I will not be purchasing them anymore. It’s a joke beyond belief.

Someone mentioned sask for fishing in another thread. Me thinks I’ll take my tackle and bounce jigs and pull cranks over there.
Wabasca was the last straw for me. Stupid stupid stupid

It’s to the point that for the first time in my life I am considering not even purchasing an Alberta fishing license. I’ve become so dissatisfied with our governments decisions concerning our fish and wildlife that I see no good reason to support them.

[58thecat]

A total failure in management is on us....imagine if we could keep more....well people have problems managing thier financiers and have little to nothing which is everyone else's fault...these same people fish and if allowed to there would be nothing left.....so in steps the regulators

If you don't believe me then step back in time when the waters were full of fish and then with population growth they got raped real quick because of us, people not able to manage ourselves.....so here we are.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by 58thecat

A total failure in management is on us....imagine if we could keep more....well people have problems managing thier financiers and have little to nothing which is everyone else's fault...these same people fish and if allowed to there would be nothing left.....so in steps the regulators

If you don't believe me then step back in time when the waters were full of fish and then with population growth they got raped real quick because of us, people not able to manage ourselves.....so here we are.

That’s like shutting down the cable so your kids can’t watch mature programming rather than taking the time to study the guide and managing what they watch, and making sure you have channels for them to enjoy. There is always going to be laws, even in the haydays of fishing there was laws.

I’m not buying what some are selling.... the only way to save our fishery is to shut it down??? Bullsht! If they have no plans on rebuilding the fishery then limit the amount of licenses sold and let the lucky few keep fish. Instead they collect money and don’t let anyone keep any fish, then waste the revenue collected from licenses. And that’s just the fishing department.

They close down general archery for moose in zones that are polluted with moose and leave zones that are baron of moose open for general moose??? Said they did a count..... What an easy load of crap to dump on the minions imo.

Very little of what they do would I consider management. Shutting opportunities down isn’t a management plan, it’s a bandaid plain and simple. Then we have the provincial and federal government slapping us in the face, handing out harvest rights to an already depleted resource! Do they all have their head up their arses?

[wind drift]

Our fisheries aren’t ‘shut down’. Using that term is misleading and is intentionally biased towards the position that catch and release sport fishing is mismanagement.

Of course many Alberta hunters and anglers want to harvest fish or moose or antelope etc., Of course we all can’t. We want what we want and when we don’t get it, we get unhappy. It’s easy to disregard our past fishery collapses or the near total absence of game on the prairies decades ago and the circumstances that got us there. That’s on us. If there’s a failure in management, it’s usually in public communication and education, not the strategies or regulations. A good chunk of that is on government, but we have to own the rest. If we’re unwilling to keep an objective mindset and take the information available to form good understanding, then we’re going on belief, not knowledge, and beliefs are damned hard to unseat. It’s not the job of a biologist to unravel a belief system.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by wind drift

Our fisheries aren’t ‘shut down’. Using that term is misleading and is intentionally biased towards the position that catch and release sport fishing is mismanagement.

Of course many Alberta hunters and anglers want to harvest fish or moose or antelope etc., Of course we all can’t. We want what we want and when we don’t get it, we get unhappy. It’s easy to disregard our past fishery collapses or the near total absence of game on the prairies decades ago and the circumstances that got us there. That’s on us. If there’s a failure in management, it’s usually in public communication and education, not the strategies or regulations. A good chunk of that is on government, but we have to own the rest. If we’re unwilling to keep an objective mindset and take the information available to form good understanding, then we’re going on belief, not knowledge, and beliefs are damned hard to unseat. It’s not the job of a biologist to unravel a belief system.

Sorry, most of our fish retention has been shut down.

It’s easy to say hunters and anglers get upset when they don’t get what they want but what about the lakes teaming with walleye, walleye you can’t keep, and now those same lakes have a collapsed pike population. Because of angler retention? Hahaha, I doubt it.

Then there is the moose populations, opened in collapsed zones and closed in zones where even the farmers who don’t hunt can’t figure out why the government would shut it down.

I don’t beleive for one minute that the bios working with the environment and parks minister are doing a good job and it’s just a case of the general population having hurt feelings.

Saskatchewan is a great example of a fishery implementing a management program through slot sizes and fish stocking, with native fish, that is working. It’s a model Alberta should have adopted 30yrs ago, but our government knows better.....

[wind drift]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

Sorry, most of our fish retention has been shut down.

It’s easy to say hunters and anglers get upset when they don’t get what they want but what about the lakes teaming with walleye, walleye you can’t keep, and now those same lakes have a collapsed pike population. Because of angler retention? Hahaha, I doubt it.

Then there is the moose populations, opened in collapsed zones and closed in zones where even the farmers who don’t hunt can’t figure out why the government would shut it down.

I don’t beleive for one minute that the bios working with the environment and parks minister are doing a good job and it’s just a case of the general population having hurt feelings.

Saskatchewan is a great example of a fishery implementing a management program through slot sizes and fish stocking, with native fish, that is working. It’s a model Alberta should have adopted 30yrs ago, but our government knows better.....

Yes, and that’s your belief system. I won’t change it. A biologist might be able to, but that’s up to you. You would have to be willing to take any info with an open mind. I was, it it took a lot of arguing first. Case in point...you say lakes are “teeming with walleye”. What if a bio said, “yes, there are more in Lake X now than since the 60s, but to be sustainable, anglers can only take 10% of the adults annually, on top of 25% annual natural death and 10% allocation to treaty. That lake can only produce 1 adult walleye per hectare, and it’s 4000 hectares, so that means angling harvest can be 400 adults, and indirect death has to also be factored in, say at 5%, that’s 20 fish. If 10,000 anglers visit the lake every year then the challlenge is to share 380 walleye between them. If a bag and size limit would exceed the target, then the only options are catch and release, tags or limit the number of folks who can fish. The last option doesn’t exist yet, so what should we do?”.

So, there’s a perfectly reasonable example of how there can be nearly no sport harvest at a lake “teeming with walleye”. The point is, that there is rationale. There is information. It’s hard for that info to penetrate the walls of the AO echo chamber. Best to broaden the perspective and get info from elsewhere. Here’s a couple links I’ve found. Easy reading...

https://albertaep.wordpress.com/2017...ience-of-fish/

https://albertaep.wordpress.com/2017...r-fishin-hole/

There’s more if you look around. Better yet, talk to a bio.

[coyote_man]

Look no further than our Suffield case.Land owners along with many others were very aware of what was happening but nothing was done until the elk became such a nuisance that even a fool realized action had to be taken. Yes, I realize that the British military was involved and in the end that issue was resolved.Our game managers did manage to provide a lot of good elk meat to many.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by wind drift

Yes, and that’s your belief system. I won’t change it. A biologist might be able to, but that’s up to you. You would have to be willing to take any info with an open mind. I was, it it took a lot of arguing first. Case in point...you say lakes are “teeming with walleye”. What if a bio said, “yes, there are more in Lake X now than since the 60s, but to be sustainable, anglers can only take 10% of the adults annually, on top of 25% annual natural death and 10% allocation to treaty. That lake can only produce 1 adult walleye per hectare, and it’s 4000 hectares, so that means angling harvest can be 400 adults, and indirect death has to also be factored in, say at 5%, that’s 20 fish. If 10,000 anglers visit the lake every year then the challlenge is to share 380 walleye between them. If a bag and size limit would exceed the target, then the only options are catch and release, tags or limit the number of folks who can fish. The last option doesn’t exist yet, so what should we do?”.

So, there’s a perfectly reasonable example of how there can be nearly no sport harvest at a lake “teeming with walleye”. The point is, that there is rationale. There is information. It’s hard for that info to penetrate the walls of the AO echo chamber. Best to broaden the perspective and get info from elsewhere. Here’s a couple links I’ve found. Easy reading...

https://albertaep.wordpress.com/2017...ience-of-fish/

https://albertaep.wordpress.com/2017...r-fishin-hole/

There’s more if you look around. Better yet, talk to a bio.

I haven’t read your links yet, but here’s a few points that haven’t been brought up, or addressed.

When you shut down the harvest on lake A which is full of walleye and leave lake B open, what happens? Lake B gets fished out so they shut lake B down and now everyone goes to lake C until they fish lake C out. This is our fish management plan in a nutshell. Rather than introduce a management plan that involves slot sizes and restocking to keep the fishing pressure evenly distributed they have a system designed to destroy our few remaining fisheries.

Walleye are imo an over protectected spicies, to the point they are decimating others spicies such as pike, perch, and whitefish. Again, our bios are setting up our lakes as a catch and release walleye emporium, where I can go out and catch 80 walleye in a day, keep none, and not see a single pike in a days fishing where I used to catch 40 walleye, keep 3 and catch and release (by choice) 25-30 pike 10 years ago. This lake had a 3-5 walleye retention limit for decades and continued to have a healthy walleye and pike population. I fished the lake several times a year, there never was a slow day fishing but the bios figured they had better limit the walleye retention, I can only assume it was because they knew with shutting down most other walleye producing lakes that they will create a huge amount of fishing pressure on lakes still open for retention. Now the pike fishery in the lake has collapsed. You’re lucky to hook one in a days fishing. I’ll tell you with 100% certainty it’s not collapsed from angling retention.

I’ll take the time to read your links, but don’t get too focused on the left hand to miss what the right hand is doing.

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Complete failure of managing world class habitat!!

[wind drift]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I’ll tell you with 100% certainty...

And therein is the heart of my point. Thanks.

“Inquiry is fatal to certainty” - Will Durant

“What men want is not knowledge, but certainty” - Bertrand Russell

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I really wish we could all agree to band together and not buy fishing or hunting licenses. That would send a statement that we don’t agree with what they’re doing with our resources. If they won’t listen to our concerns why do we keep paying them?

Just these are my feelings as well. I tried to create discussion about this here:


http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=337280

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by wind drift

And therein is the heart of my point. Thanks.

“Inquiry is fatal to certainty” - Will Durant

“What men want is not knowledge, but certainty” - Bertrand Russell

Like I said, you seem to be focused on the left hand.

Maybe if I didn’t expirience it through years of fishing the lake regularly you could convince me it’s from angling, now you are saying with certainty I’m mistaken.


82% of people feel the environment minister is doing an inadequate job, with less than 2% in full support of their direction. I think those stats speak volumes to the fact something has to change.

[Texican]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I really wish that was an option.

At this point I think our best hope is to elect a new government and hope the newly appointed minister will take conservation and management seriously with our conserving our resources and coming up with a proper management plan as a main priority.


By just a preliminary look at the responses it seems 50% of us outdoorsmen are 100% unsatisfied with the way our resources are being managed. Obviously something major has to change.

You can vote in a new government as many times as you wish, but the bureaucrats who make the decisions don't change. Only a strong minister who really wants to make the changes that are necessary (including firing some senior bureaucrats) can revamp the policy.