I am all for the end of this program. There are better, more cost effective ways to provide hunting experiences.
Why not focus on improving waterfowl habitat, saving the salmon and working to get more private land east of the mountains open to hunters.
Im afraid that in today's instagram culture, people want the grip and grin but aren't willing to do the work to find the birds and hunt them wild as it should be done.There are still great numbers of roosters in WA, but you gotta be willing to do the homework.
Some of the figures I have heard that it costs $$ wise per pheasant to release is unreal.
Not to mention why are we paying to feed the valley yotes and roadkill. I see dead pheasant on 203 daily during the season.
It's not the homework, its the drive time... Finding roosters in E.WA isn't that hard, but as a father with two young children I can't afford to spend that much time driving 4 hours each way to hunt roosters on a saturday. the program provides opportunity and should be self funded, why would anyone have a problem with that.
Yup.
You’re down to grouse only on the west side if you are not a water fowler and we lose release site pheasant...which arguably could be a good thing if it meant the state threw money into habitat improvement for the thunder chickens.
The program has been around since the fifties. It has worked. Leave it alone and fund it. Keep taking opportunities close to home away and you will watch hunting and Pittman Robertson revenues die even more.
Doing away with it takes away from a recruiting tool. It is likely an under utilized one in this way.
To save $ today they could cut it and it wouldn't likely change much for them. We do know that Bird and small game hunting is one of the few ways to get new hunters started with little experience. More action and more active/social.
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