Archery antlerless harvest per GMU:
HARVEST GMU: 328 329 334 336 340 352 356 364 Totals
Antlerless Archery 177 36 2 16 9 46 39 34 359
District 8 harvest by weapon and resource allocation:
method district species Harvest (3 year avg) % Harvest/user group #Hunters % Hunters/user group Disparity
ARCHERY 8 ELK 620 24.93% 5757 26.69% -1.76%
MODERN 8 ELK 1,573 62.77% 13,432 62.32% 0.45%
MUZZLE 8 ELK 306 12.30% 2364 10.99% 1.31%
The numbers above are for the last 3 years average. We calculate the % of hunters overall per user group. Then look to see how many animals they harvest, and see what percentage of the overall harvest that is. Archery is the lowest on resource allocation for this unit. The other user groups harvest more bulls, but have special permits for antlerless. Archers have antlerless in their general season. Before you criticize the antlerless harvest in 328/329, WDFW says the population is at or above objective in that unit, allowing that harvest. With more animals, there is more conflict in those units. The other 6 Yakima GMU's in the district account for very little antlerless harvest. However, the other user groups have cow permits in these units and there was no proposal to cut their special permits. I don't want to make this a fight between user groups. There should be no fight, it's just simple numbers and statistics. We try and get the disparity relatively equal among the user groups.
Can you imagine the disparity if you removed 300+ elk from the archery total of about 600? The district would be way out of whack. Also, remember, muzzy is 2% high in allocation overall in the state.
