Major wdfw overhaul

[elkchaser54]

Absolutely, I have been scouring the WDFW website today and the only volunteering efforts I have found have been tucked in under the Master Hunter section, with most of that being for private lands.  Its definitely frustrating because most of our public land is national and good luck getting a hold of any one in the federal system. 

The state owns well over a million acres within its wildlife management areas and they do a lot of work on them, however they don't have much public help.  Every 8 to 10 years they rework their "PLANS" for them with the most recent being in 2014. 

I am wanting to reach out to someone at WDFW to discuss with them a better way to get the publics help because its sounds like I am not the only one that would pick up a shovel or plant a tree or lay some herbicide for our favorite ungulates.  But I am struggling to figure out who to talk to.... anyone have any ideas???

[Special T]

By your own admission it is not possible to lay this at the feet of sportsmen for not doing enough.

Unfortunately thinking outside the box is suppressed.

Organizing volunteers is not an easy task. Anyone whom has been a part of a club or Organization can attest to it. It can pay massive dividends but takes time to ramp up a cadre of volunteers.


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[Southpole]

I guess for now I will volunteer to send several .243 rounds through some predators. 

[elkchaser54]

http://www.rmef.org/HowToHelp/Volunteer/VolunteerOpportunities.aspx

Here is a good organization to volunteer under.  Elk habitat supports more deer as well.

But volunteering with the .243 is going to be more fun hahaha

[Southpole]

http://www.rmef.org/HowToHelp/Volunteer/VolunteerOpportunities.aspx

Here is a good organization to volunteer under.  Elk habitat supports more deer as well.

But volunteering with the .243 is going to be more fun hahaha

 

[wheels]

get some groups together  maybe do own study  put some money in and ground work in to habitat

[DeerThug]

Ok time for me to weigh in.  Back on point I think it comes down to basic management and someone that can make decisions.  Both on game and predator. I have hunted deer in the same place for 18 years.  The first year we killed 9 bucks the first day.  With  herds of 20 or more deer everywhere. Just pick out the one you want.  Now out of my group I am the only one left that hunts there. Some dont hunt at all.   Last year it took me 11 days to find a legal buck.  Only seeing a few in a day.

This year i heard 3 shots in two days and only saw one hanging that was a doe.  I saw less than 10 and one barely legal buck that i passed ( Had a permit for elsewhere)

BUT WDFW still has doe tags, second deer tags, disabled etc. in this area.  Obviously a biologist has not spent even a little time in there to adjust the seasons and permits accordingly.  Compound that over years and ... well there ya go.

The cougars have just decimated the wildlife and as of last winter there are wolves in there as well.  Not just the deer - when i first hunted there the quail, pheasant and cottontail were everywhere.  This year i did not see even one quail.  The pray species are just vanishing.  And the livestock are supplementing the predators and they pick off a deer when they can.

The wildlife management side of wdfw is out of balance. Non-existant  one could say. Not sure what we can do about it. 

Some of what has been asked for is called a Lobbyist.  They are expensive but effective but i would be willing to throw a couple of bucks into the cause.

 

[wolfbait]

As I,ve said many times, "its a multi headed snake", and not a problem that can be fixed by chopping off just one head. As some have said, its a predator problem, its a habitat problem, too many hunters putting to much pressure on certain herds, bad winters, fires, poor management of our herds and forest regeneration. All are valid issues and problems. MrMykiss brought up some good points about each of us doing what we can do to help fix the problem and not just gripeing about it amongst ourselves, go to meetings, write letters etc. etc.. I will take his advice and I hope more do. We should all hunt predators and buy tags(I already do that and have for years), If each one of us killed a few coyotes every year that would be a lot of dead yotes, we have killed 9 so far this year in the Methow. We had opportunities to kill 3 different bears and a handful of cougars this year, could not get clean shots at the bears(last thing I want to do is go after a wounded bear) and the cats were gone by the time we shouldered our rifles . That example alone hi-lites the predator problem, at least in the Methow! We seen a ton of coyotes, 3 big bears and a handful of cougars(including a dead collared cat in the back of a truck), more bear/cougar and coyote sign than I have ever seen in the 60 years I,ve been hunting there, not to mention all the cached kills we came across(about 20 or so) and this was in a 10 day time frame!  The problem truly is multi-headed.

Well put Bigmac, 

I don't see WDF&wolves leaping to their feet with any effort to change the outcome, remember they were doing the wolf push in the 1980's and 90's. They have known all along what their bogus wolf plan would do to the ungulate herds and livestock, heck they had several years of watching it happen in ID, MT and Wyoming.

I don't have an answer as to how to force WDFW to manage the game herds, I do know that if some kind of predator control isn't implemented either by WDFW or the public the game herds will be depleted to the point their won't be anything left to hunt.

Habitat is secondary etc..

[bigmacc]

Ok time for me to weigh in.  Back on point I think it comes down to basic management and someone that can make decisions.  Both on game and predator. I have hunted deer in the same place for 18 years.  The first year we killed 9 bucks the first day.  With  herds of 20 or more deer everywhere. Just pick out the one you want.  Now out of my group I am the only one left that hunts there. Some dont hunt at all.   Last year it took me 11 days to find a legal buck.  Only seeing a few in a day.

This year i heard 3 shots in two days and only saw one hanging that was a doe.  I saw less than 10 and one barely legal buck that i passed ( Had a permit for elsewhere)

BUT WDFW still has doe tags, second deer tags, disabled etc. in this area.  Obviously a biologist has not spent even a little time in there to adjust the seasons and permits accordingly.  Compound that over years and ... well there ya go.

The cougars have just decimated the wildlife and as of last winter there are wolves in there as well.  Not just the deer - when i first hunted there the quail, pheasant and cottontail were everywhere.  This year i did not see even one quail.  The pray species are just vanishing.  And the livestock are supplementing the predators and they pick off a deer when they can.

The wildlife management side of wdfw is out of balance. Non-existant  one could say. Not sure what we can do about it. 

Some of what has been asked for is called a Lobbyist.  They are expensive but effective but i would be willing to throw a couple of bucks into the cause.

Great post, on the money and to the point

[Mr Mykiss]

Dang. When you guys are ready I'll give you the answer.

[Humptulips]

What I think everyone wants is for WDFW to listen to them and not be ignored.

There is an answer to that and that answer is participation in hunter advocacy groups.
I am the president of The Washington State Trappers Association  http://watrappers.com/.
 We have a bit less then half the number of licensed trappers in the State signed up as members. It irks me that every trapper in the State isn't a member. Believe me it matters when I speak to Department personnel or the Commission and I can quote a large number that I represent. Even at that we are pretty small potatoes because there just aren't that many trappers.
I would be willing to bet though that we have a far higher rate of participation then any other group of Sportsmen in WA,
I also am a member of Washingtonians for Wildlife Conservation http://w4wc.org/index.html .
 They represent hunters but their membership numbers compared to hunters is abysmal.
Both are members of the Hunters Heritage Council  http://huntersheritagecouncil.org/index.html.
They get to set down with WDFW and get listened to on policy. I heard one person mention a lobbyist. Well, they have a lobbyist.
But again it is about numbers. Imagine what influence they could have if every hunter was a member. On top of that I know we have some really smart people on here but I do not see most of them vying for positions in these organizations.
Lets just dream a little about most if not all hunters joining. The leaders would really be listened to and could have a very large influence on the direction of the agency. With that many people there could be regional or even county directors and advisory groups to WDFW.
CNW and HSUS have influence with the agency only because they can tout large numbers. We need the same.
Join one of the hunting groups, go to the meetings, voice your concerns and volunteer. Run for a position. All well and good to get up before the Commission and voice your ideas but I think there is far more to be gained by standing together.
Legislature is a tougher nut to crack but the same holds true in getting changes in RCWs.
I do not think an Initiative is a smart thing to talk about. Possibly you do not realize how much money it takes to win an Initiative and the numbers are not with us on most issues.

[TD3939]

As I've said many times, "its a multi headed snake", and not a problem that can be fixed by chopping off just one head.

Well said and I think we can all agree with this point.  Being 57 years old and hunting my whole life I've seen this thing get worse and worse.  I have person experience of seeing what can happen if a deer herd is managed properly.  I've seen the deer numbers basically explode in the last 25 years in parts of Douglas county...on private land where predators and the harvest is controlled.  So I offer 2 suggestions that WILL help immediately.

1.  eliminate the multi-season tags.  All you're doing is putting more people in the field and more pressure on the deer.  I know it's a big money maker  but come-on knock it off!

2.  TRY... and do SOMETHING about the Native American Trophy harvesting.  I know this one is very difficult.

As another suggestion I support permit only hunting for a few years until the herd stabilizes .

[NOCK NOCK]

Bears alone are responsible for upwards of 35% of the fawn mortality.

Yeah this is an amazingly large and pretty underappreciated source of deer predation. Huge impact that black bears have on fawn recruitment.

Curious where ya'll  got this info from???   Post up a link 

[NOCK NOCK]

As I've said many times, "its a multi headed snake", and not a problem that can be fixed by chopping off just one head.

Well said and I think we can all agree with this point.  Being 57 years old and hunting my whole life I've seen this thing get worse and worse.  I have person experience of seeing what can happen if a deer herd is managed properly.  I've seen the deer numbers basically explode in the last 25 years in parts of Douglas county...on private land where predators and the harvest is controlled.  So I offer 2 suggestions that WILL help immediately.

1.  eliminate the multi-season tags.  All you're doing is putting more people in the field and more pressure on the deer. I know it's a big money maker  but come-on knock it off!

2.  TRY... and do SOMETHING about the Native American Trophy harvesting.  I know this one is very difficult.

As another suggestion I support permit only hunting for a few years until the herd stabilizes .

 

WE (the hunters) are the deer's worst enemy's.

[eliandsky]

I think Scully and Moulder should take over as moderator on this post. There’s more conspiracies and disinformation here then in an Xfile


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