Any Info on Antelope #'s yet?

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by chuck

Is managing for trophy quality only a good thing when it suits you? I'm just not in the "enough little ones for everyone" crowd.

I never mentioned managing for trophy quality. I couldn't give a rat's ass for trophy management. I do advocate managing so that there is a full composite of age structures within the population which invariably results in some mature animals always being available for hunters.

Pronghorns are a fast animal, they run fast, live fast and die fast. Offering enough licences to achieve a harvest of 8-10% of population range is a sound conservative level that will ensure the full age range of animals. The current licencing scheme reducing Resident harvest to 4-5% is simply allowing Coyotes to eat what we could have had for ourselves.


Chuck, since you are so adamant about a need to increase fees for hunting as a means of thinning out the Draw herd, why are you against offering the full number of licences allocated to Resident harvest as a means to reduce wait times?

[Sledhead71]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

I never mentioned managing for trophy quality. I couldn't give a rat's ass for trophy management. I do advocate managing so that there is a full composite of age structures within the population which invariably results in some mature animals always being available for hunters.

Pronghorns are a fast animal, they run fast, live fast and die fast. Offering enough licences to achieve a harvest of 8-10% of population range is a sound conservative level that will ensure the full age range of animals. The current licencing scheme reducing Resident harvest to 4-5% is simply allowing Coyotes to eat what we could have had for ourselves.

Chuck, since you are so adamant about a need to increase fees for hunting as a means of thinning out the Draw herd, why are you against offering the full number of licences allocated to Resident harvest as a means to reduce wait times?

Please explain your reasoning for the bolded... Predators don't hunt their prey based on allowable human harvest ratios

[packhuntr]

Originally Posted by Sledhead71

Please explain your reasoning for the bolded... Predators don't hunt their prey based on allowable human harvest ratios

Took the words clear outa my mouth. They rely on sheer numbers to ensure simply SURVIVAL. With fawns, bad spring weather, predation and mortality of mature animals are biggest contributors to fawns hitting the ground and or surviving, or not. WB, how with poor pronghorn numbers, does one come to the belief that harvesting more mature animals, equates to success?

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by Sledhead71

Please explain your reasoning for the bolded... Predators don't hunt their prey based on allowable human harvest ratios

Compensatory Mortality.

[walking buffalo]

Hunting Bucks at a 10% Allowable Harvest level will have no negative effect on sex ratios and reproduction rates. Harvest at this level allows for a full age range of bucks to be present thus offering hunters 15" two year old bucks and13" five year old bucks.


Other than the uncontrollable issue of winter mortality, the greatest impediment to Pronghorn populations is predation, in particular coyotes.


Reducing buck harvest ratios will do absolutely nothing to help speed up the recovery of the herds. Killing coyotes will. One just needs to review the history of Pronghorns and Fur prices in Alberta to see the correlation. High fur prices coincide with high Pronghorn population growth.

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

I never mentioned managing for trophy quality. I couldn't give a rat's ass for trophy management. I do advocate managing so that there is a full composite of age structures within the population which invariably results in some mature animals always being available for hunters.

Pronghorns are a fast animal, they run fast, live fast and die fast. Offering enough licences to achieve a harvest of 8-10% of population range is a sound conservative level that will ensure the full age range of animals. The current licencing scheme reducing Resident harvest to 4-5% is simply allowing Coyotes to eat what we could have had for ourselves.


Chuck, since you are so adamant about a need to increase fees for hunting as a means of thinning out the Draw herd, why are you against offering the full number of licences allocated to Resident harvest as a means to reduce wait times?

I know you don't care about trophy quality. I do. You don't have to look very far to see your model significantly reduce that.

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

Hunting Bucks at a 10% Allowable Harvest level will have no negative effect on sex ratios and reproduction rates. Harvest at this level allows for a full age range of bucks to be present thus offering hunters 15" two year old bucks and13" five year old bucks.


Other than the uncontrollable issue of winter mortality, the greatest impediment to Pronghorn populations is predation, in particular coyotes.


Reducing buck harvest ratios will do absolutely nothing to help speed up the recovery of the herds. Killing coyotes will. One just needs to review the history of Pronghorns and Fur prices in Alberta to see the correlation. High fur prices coincide with high Pronghorn population growth.

I was completely unaware that coyotes hunted on a draw system as well. It's nice of them to reduce their harvest when we increase ours.

[packhuntr]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

Hunting Bucks at a 10% Allowable Harvest level will have no negative effect on sex ratios and reproduction rates. Harvest at this level allows for a full age range of bucks to be present thus offering hunters 15" two year old bucks and13" five year old bucks.


Other than the uncontrollable issue of winter mortality, the greatest impediment to Pronghorn populations is predation, in particular coyotes.


Reducing buck harvest ratios will do absolutely nothing to help speed up the recovery of the herds. Killing coyotes will. One just needs to review the history of Pronghorns and Fur prices in Alberta to see the correlation. High fur prices coincide with high Pronghorn population growth.

Ok sure. Low fur prices the reason we are running out of open country mule deer, sage grouse, pinnated grouse, swift fox, blackfooted ferret. Should we keep this list going? Get real man. The only problem with our antelope numbers is complete idiots at the helm of srd, bowing to pressure from embarrassments like the once great AFGA, to maximize hunting/angling opportunity, in attempt to satisfy the mass of uneducated people that want nothing more than to simply kill stuff. Do not assume that people dont know whats been happening here. Make no mistake, what we know as todays laughable "conservation", is swiftly turning into tomorrows "protection". And its all going to be due to shallow simple little men with zero comprehension or care. For the time being shes all about here and now. I dont think anyone thats calling for more conservative management is calling for the end of hunting lol, as im sure your only retort will be. Just saying it might be due time to stop with the smoke and mirrors and political bs, in favor of a more proactive stance. Or maybe you really believe all your told while you sit in your suburban world?