Fish and game unorganized or deceptive?

[bigskyhounds]

After reading the last couple pages of the cougar call in page I decided to post something I found to be interesting.

At our last NEWWG meeting it was discussed how many cats were being killed and why our quotas haven't been raised with more and more cats being killed. Be it depradation or hunter harvest.

The houndsman that run the cats for wdfw started to show up at the meetings, to in my opinion defend the wdfw. People were getting angry because they weren't killing the cats that had killed livestock or whatever. These guys came in and said look we've killed this many cats....they're doing their job... Tony leonetti comes to the meeting and same deal basically were killing cats taking care of the problem...

So last meeting one of the board members had recently been trying to get a concrete number of cats killed. He had been told numbers by the houndsman and numbers by Tony leonetti, but when he called wdfw he was told one number one day by someone and a different number from someone else another day.

I asked him whether he felt they were being deceptive or they really didn't know what the number was. He felt that they were unorganized and the people he was talking to didn't know

I was made aware of the pits that the majority of these cats are being thrown into. The meeting Tony was at I asked him about these pits and his response was give me a better idea of what we should do with them. Now at the time I wasn't prepared to make a sound response.

If we don't have a mountain lion problem why are we throwing a natural resource into a pit to rot? My wife's cousin claims to have seen two lions and an alpaca in a pit near shermam about a month ago.

Do you guys feel if the general public knew about these pits that they would care? I'm all about conservation and management like the majority of hunters. I feel like this is a huge waste and shame that these cats are just rotting away in some pit.

[Bango skank]

I dont think the different answers come from deliberate misinformation, but from many people at wdfw not knowing whats going on.  You have to ask the right people.  If you want accurate numbers of depredations, the houndsmen are who i trust.  Theyre the ones actually doing it, and you can bet they know the tally.  And remember, those 2 dont do ferry county, so whatever number they say, 101 isnt even included in that.

[bigskyhounds]

I dont think the different answers come from deliberate misinformation, but from many people at wdfw not knowing whats going on.  You have to ask the right people.  If you want accurate numbers of depredations, the houndsmen are who i trust.  Theyre the ones actually doing it, and you can bet they know the tally.  And remember, those 2 dont do ferry county, so whatever number they say, 101 isnt even included in that.

I agree. Just shows the mess that is wdfw

[Special T]

I belive there are a series of accounting problems. Cat populations dont include sub adults less than 2yo. Hunter and houndsmen kills of juvenile cats may/may not count tword quota.

Add to this that the last time the department and commission tried to  raise the quota our govenor squashed it.

The numbers are fuzzy. Which makes it hard to tell if this helps us or hurts us considering our govenor. Shouldn't be a big surprise because I've been told the Governor  is pathetic at running CATs...

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[jstone]

A lot of the government agencies like to hire for TALENT.!! They love that word. It lets them hire there buddies that have no idea on how to do the job. My opinion

So the DFW is; unorganized and deceptive

[KFhunter]

After reading the last couple pages of the cougar call in page I decided to post something I found to be interesting.

At our last NEWWG meeting it was discussed how many cats were being killed and why our quotas haven't been raised with more and more cats being killed. Be it depradation or hunter harvest.

The houndsman that run the cats for wdfw started to show up at the meetings, to in my opinion defend the wdfw. People were getting angry because they weren't killing the cats that had killed livestock or whatever. These guys came in and said look we've killed this many cats....they're doing their job... Tony leonetti comes to the meeting and same deal basically were killing cats taking care of the problem...

So last meeting one of the board members had recently been trying to get a concrete number of cats killed. He had been told numbers by the houndsman and numbers by Tony leonetti, but when he called wdfw he was told one number one day by someone and a different number from someone else another day.

I asked him whether he felt they were being deceptive or they really didn't know what the number was. He felt that they were unorganized and the people he was talking to didn't know

I was made aware of the pits that the majority of these cats are being thrown into. The meeting Tony was at I asked him about these pits and his response was give me a better idea of what we should do with them. Now at the time I wasn't prepared to make a sound response.

If we don't have a mountain lion problem why are we throwing a natural resource into a pit to rot? My wife's cousin claims to have seen two lions and an alpaca in a pit near shermam about a month ago.

Do you guys feel if the general public knew about these pits that they would care? I'm all about conservation and management like the majority of hunters. I feel like this is a huge waste and shame that these cats are just rotting away in some pit.

Those pits have been there for many years, the general public does indeed know about them.  I've stood over the pit and tried to identify all the animals,  I counted a moose, lot's of deer, a coyote someone had shot trying to scavenge out of the pit, some cats sure. 

The pit doesn't bother me. 

As for the deception I find it implausible that they don't know,  the costs to call out the hounds-man to a site, along with a game warden has a cost, there should be a bean counter that knows how many cats and the average manpower cost per cat, so they can request budgets for that particular program.   

What I DO find plausible is you're talking to the wrong bean counter or managers and they're pulling numbers out their rears and none of them match.    but someone somewhere will know.

As for the quota's there is a change coming, game management plans come out in 3yr cycles, the commission voted to raise the quota's but jay inslee (may he get voted out) shot it down citing procedure errors, there wasn't a public comment period, so we were stuck with another cycle of the same quota's. 

The WSU study that came out is a fraud, but we're stuck with it until we get this new management plan. 

[Humptulips]

Addressing just the wastage issue, they can give, any of that stuff they toss, away if they wanted. They could take contact info and create a waiting list. Something gets killed, make a call and give it away.

[Wsucoug]

Does anyone think it is the WDFW on the east side of the state that are trying to correct a rampant problem without putting the whole department on notice. Depredation is one method to reduce the cougar population without jumping through all the hoops without shining a spotlight on whats going on. Sometimes people just get tired of getting yelled at when they know they are doing the right thing. 

[buckfvr]

One thing for sure......it has been kept as quiet as possible because they have been forced to recognize the problem and address it to some degree, and so far without the ire of dishonest jays constituency screaming for it to end.  I do believe that is on the horizon though.

Much of the cat problem exists where general hunting of them would be hugely problematic as it takes place in areas of private properties.  An even bigger problem as I see it is the reluctance of the property owners to deal with their own problems as they have every right to kill these cats that are threatening their property.  Instead, they opt to make phone calls and go to meetings and complain about their personal problems not being solved for them.

My thought is rather than drawing attention to the problem in such a big way, just deal with it if and when it visits your space.

[KFhunter]

 


Then there's instances where WDFW does chase a sheep killing cat and it goes on private property up a tree...and the landowner won't let them deal with it,  thereby screwing over their neighbor with the dead sheep

[hunter399]

Does anyone think it is the WDFW on the east side of the state that are trying to correct a rampant problem without putting the whole department on notice. Depredation is one method to reduce the cougar population without jumping through all the hoops without shining a spotlight on whats going on. Sometimes people just get tired of getting yelled at when they know they are doing the right thing.

I was thinking the same thing.
I'm not gonna call them on it when creates more opportunity for us hunters.My email level is about zero .At the end of the day I'm just glad to still have a season.

[WSU]

Both.

[huntnphool]

Both.

 That’s just too easy.

[follow maggie]

Some of both. It’s pretty tough to say there not deception going on when the wdfw has a known history of lying to us.

[Jwede]

I’m sorry if this is dumb but I’m new to the state. I thought you couldn’t hunt lions with hounds.. are the hounds men hired by the state for depradation?


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[buckfvr]

Correct

[JimmyHoffa]

I’m sorry if this is dumb but I’m new to the state. I thought you couldn’t hunt lions with hounds.. are the hounds men hired by the state for depradation?


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Also the houndsmen might be tribal members (for lions), could be contractors for timber companies if for bear.

[Jwede]

So why don’t they just let Hunters Use hounds until each gmu hits whatever number is needed for proper balance. There will be no waste in pits and the state would make money?


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[Jwede]

Sorry new to the state just curious


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[buckfvr]

Much of the predation hunting goes on near/on private property and takes a sizeable effort to gain access to run hounds through and about the properties that would be affected by chasing a cat with hounds........

[Jwede]

That makes sense, thank you


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[Wsucoug]

So why don’t they just let Hunters Use hounds until each gmu hits whatever number is needed for proper balance. There will be no waste in pits and the state would make money?


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It is also illegal for a hunters to use hounds to hunt cougars. This was voted in via initiative and is out of WDFW hands. 

[Jwede]

So why don’t they just let Hunters Use hounds until each gmu hits whatever number is needed for proper balance. There will be no waste in pits and the state would make money?


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It is also illegal for a hunters to use hounds to hunt cougars. This was voted in via initiative and is out of WDFW hands.

I understand it’s illegal. Was just curious as to why have depredation houndsmen when they could just let hunters do it but buckfvr answered that.


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