Here is what the WSAA, TBW and WSB released.
Last summer the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) held public scoping
meetings to find out what the public wanted to see in the next three-year-season-package. The
Game Management Advisory Council (GMAC) Allocation Sub-Committee has been working on
what recommendations will be sent to the WDFW. Then the WDFW will present the
recommendations to the Fish & Wildlife Commission at a meeting in March of this year. This all
leads up to the Commission making their final decisions in April and adopting a 2009-11 three-year
game management plan.
Over the last six years we archers’ success percentages have been well balanced with our usergroup
size; we’ve been successful in meeting the management goals for elk, and because of a few
high-yield deer Game Management Units (GMU’s) the overall deer numbers look pretty good, too.
The other two groups (Modern Firearms and Muzzleloaders) were reportedly behind on some goals
so the WDFW was asked to balance things out. By adjusting the timing of the seasons, the season
lengths and utilizing special permits they can alter the harvest levels of the user-groups.
An Archery Coalition of representatives from TBW, WSAA and WSB has met a number of times
throughout the past few months to discuss the proceedings. Throughout the process additional
informational statistics have been requested of and provided by the WDFW so that the numbers
could be carefully studied. The Archery Coalition has made it clear that the status quo is preferred.
Yet, in spite of the fact that the harvest statistics from 2003-2007 show that Resource Allocation
(which mandates that user-groups harvest a percentage of the resource that is equal to their
proportion of the total number of all hunters) is working, a Modern Firearms (M/F) representative
on the GMAC has proposed to the WDFW that archery seasons suffer wholesale changes. Several
of his early recommendations actually became the starting point for negotiations despite his data
later being proved inaccurate by careful analysis of the statistics.
Early in the process it had been generally accepted that providing more deer opportunity for the
muzzleloaders was a goal worth pursuing because, we were told by the department, muzzleloaders
were behind in deer harvest. Five years data from 2003-2007 shows muzzleloaders made up 7.00%
of all hunters and took 6.64% of the deer; modern firearms made up 80.28% of all hunters and took
81.86% of the deer; and archers made up 12.78% of all hunters and took 11.50% of the deer.
Despite this solid data the latest recommendation shows a reduction of early archery deer season by
five days to allow the muzzleloaders to have the last five days of September. Archers fell short of
their goals by 1.28% while modern firearms were over theirs by 1.58%, and yet it is proposed that
the archers lose five days of their season. Yes muzzleloaders could take some more deer, but the
data doesn’t support a reduction of the archery season.
The modern firearms representative’s claim that archers were killing a disproportionate amount of
mature bulls caused the Allocation Sub-Committee to consider moving our early elk season to Sept
1-15, and to introduce some peak rut modern firearms permits for Sept 21-25. The Archery
Coalition flat out rejected the proposed season dates but at the same time supported the idea of
modern firearms getting a some peak rut permits. It was suggested instead that if the status quo
couldn’t be maintained, then let the season start the day after Labor Day and run for two weeks.
Again all this was before we had all the data. Study of five years data from 2003-2007 shows
muzzleloaders made up 14.44% of all hunters and took 17.74% of the elk; modern firearms made
up 66.44% of all hunters and took 62.94% of the elk; and archers made up 19.12% of all hunters
and took 19.32% of the elk. Again archers are meeting the management goals, so to shorten the
early season by a day and make it a floating start (which occasionally would make it begin as early
as Sept 2) isn’t a good answer to modern firearms not getting their share of the elk. If the dates were
instead moved up by just one day (Sept 7-20), then the modern firearms can have permits starting
the 21st and we can still have a full fourteen day season that won’t start so early that we are
constantly faced with fire closures on timber lands. Once in a while it would start on Labor Day
which isn’t ideal, but taking a day away from a plan that is working makes no sense.
Another proposed change by the modern firearms community was to move the archery late season
to December 1st -15th (Westside to Dec. 1st -31st). The Archery Coalition would not accept this. The
most recent draft plan has the start on the day before Thanksgiving and the season running until the
8th of December (East; 15th West). This draft has support from the Archery Coalition because it not
only gives us a decent length of late season but it also allows the other user groups to hunt a few
days later which can get them the weather they need to push the animals down from the high
country. This seems to be a win-win scenario.
It is proposed that archers lose the general deer late season in the Swakane to the permit-only
hunting due to a low post-season buck count at mule deer wintering areas by the WDFW. But
recently a bowhunting Chelan County resident who monitors those mule deer went to the local
WDFW biologist and explained to him that while the department was flying over the wintering
areas, there were many, many bucks still living up in the higher valleys. The Archery Coalition also
pointed out that closing the Swakane will force hundreds of archers to go into other popular GMU’s
where overcrowding will occur. The WDFW agrees that these points are valid and it need to be
looked at more closely.
Archery permits in the Entiat will be reduced due to both the low buck count mentioned above and
the introduction of muzzleloader permits to that GMU for the first time, which means that the
resource allocation formula must be implemented. Archers will get additional late season
opportunity in some other GMU’s to offset the losses in the Entiat and the Swakane: specifically
permits will be introduced in the 209, 215, 233, 242, 243, 246 & 251.
The statewide total number of archery deer permits proposed for 2009 is 301, whereas in 2008 we
had 375; this is a reduction of about 20%. Also notable is the fact that last year 336 permits were for
‘any deer’ but this year 80 are ‘any deer’ and all the rest will carry a special restriction of ‘any
buck’. Muzzleloader deer permits are slated to increase by nearly 4% from 880 in 2008 up to 913 in
2009; the make-up of special restrictions (whether they get bucks or does) remains largely
unchanged. And modern firearms permits will drop 31% from 6197 in 2008 to 4240 in 2009 (to
offset their general season getting lengthened); the make-up of their special restrictions is also
largely unchanged. It is necessary to put special restrictions in place when the biology warrants it;
but such changes should be evenly made all across the board, not just for one user group.
This is a call for comments from the membership as well as notice that we may need to have
members attend the March Commission meeting to testify on behalf of fair archery seasons.
Your can send your comments to your organization’s contact listed below and they’ll be
passed along to the Archery Coalition.
WSAA; Ray Crisp, email; 2009-2011@washingtonarchery.org, phone; 360-790-3900
WSB; John Pignotti, email; jkpig@msn.com, phone; 253-841-3820
TBW; Dale Sharp, email; dl_sharp@comcast.net, phone; 253-630-6660
Link:
http://washingtonarchery.org/cp/Scripts/ASP/discuss/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=150&FID=1&PR=3
