Olympic National Park Goat Hunt Group Anyone?

[Karl Blanchard]

Sounds like winners were in a group email.  Lot of losers to be notified. I got my loser email like 9hrs after I heard emails were going out and I bet I refreshed it 900 times 

[stlusn30-06]

was a lottery from the start, no real defined criteria, steven king write ups would prob win them over. kind of expected the results and would expect nothing less from the process... fail for sure

I disagree. Patti is one squared away chick and I think she has done a great job through the whole process.  They had a vetting system and at the end of the day only 21 teams out of 1,200 could be selected.

as busy as she was Friday, she took time to talk and was very informative.  I forgot to ask her about the 18 Aaron's with two A's though!

I was kind of surprised it gone done so quickly.  Pretty sure she's a school board member and something else that takes up time--her name is on the ballot at times.

I spoke with her the day after the announcement was made, and she spent a half hour talking me through the program, qualifications, outcomes, national implications, etc... She and her team did a phenomenal job in responding to everyone I heard of that reached out for personal communication, they pushed through reviewing all of these apps, and are fully supporting bringing in hunters to assist with this effort. When I talked to her she mentioned this was the first time the NPS was bringing hunters into this kind of terrain, to assist with removal of a species that live in this kind of habitat. There are national eyes on this, and the outcome will help dictate if these opportunities come up in other Parks. She was in no way taking any of this lightly. She deserves accolades from the WA hunt community for the support and effort she's put in. This is a great example of the Federal Gov't using all management techniques available, partnering with the sportsman's community, and acting in a fiscally responsible manner. Lets avoid disparaging the work she and her teams put into this.

[BULLBLASTER]

Sounds like winners were in a group email.  Lot of losers to be notified. I got my loser email like 9hrs after I heard emails were going out and I bet I refreshed it 900 times 

You also had a full on series of heart attacks for the 12 minutes we were out of phone service! 

[blackveltbowhunter]

was a lottery from the start, no real defined criteria, steven king write ups would prob win them over. kind of expected the results and would expect nothing less from the process... fail for sure

I disagree. Patti is one squared away chick and I think she has done a great job through the whole process.  They had a vetting system and at the end of the day only 21 teams out of 1,200 could be selected.

as busy as she was Friday, she took time to talk and was very informative.  I forgot to ask her about the 18 Aaron's with two A's though!

I was kind of surprised it gone done so quickly.  Pretty sure she's a school board member and something else that takes up time--her name is on the ballot at times.

I spoke with her the day after the announcement was made, and she spent a half hour talking me through the program, qualifications, outcomes, national implications, etc... She and her team did a phenomenal job in responding to everyone I heard of that reached out for personal communication, they pushed through reviewing all of these apps, and are fully supporting bringing in hunters to assist with this effort. When I talked to her she mentioned this was the first time the NPS was bringing hunters into this kind of terrain, to assist with removal of a species that live in this kind of habitat. There are national eyes on this, and the outcome will help dictate if these opportunities come up in other Parks. She was in no way taking any of this lightly. She deserves accolades from the WA hunt community for the support and effort she's put in. This is a great example of the Federal Gov't using all management techniques available, partnering with the sportsman's community, and acting in a fiscally responsible manner. Lets avoid disparaging the work she and her teams put into this.

 

Spot on

[Karl Blanchard]

 [/quote]  I spoke with her the day after the announcement was made, and she spent a half hour talking me through the program, qualifications, outcomes, national implications, etc... She and her team did a phenomenal job in responding to everyone I heard of that reached out for personal communication, they pushed through reviewing all of these apps, and are fully supporting bringing in hunters to assist with this effort. When I talked to her she mentioned this was the first time the NPS was bringing hunters into this kind of terrain, to assist with removal of a species that live in this kind of habitat. There are national eyes on this, and the outcome will help dictate if these opportunities come up in other Parks. She was in no way taking any of this lightly. She deserves accolades from the WA hunt community for the support and effort she's put in. This is a great example of the Federal Gov't using all management techniques available, partnering with the sportsman's community, and acting in a fiscally responsible manner. Lets avoid disparaging the work she and her teams put into this.
[/quote]

well said and I 100% agree. Like I said before, everyone thinks they had the best team ever but I always refer back to some wise words an old coach of mine told us once and that was there is always someone out there that is better than you and working harder to be better than you. That usually rings true.  Congrats to the successful teams should be a more appropriate response than "we got screwed because people lied on their apps". 

[birddogdad]

was a lottery from the start, no real defined criteria, steven king write ups would prob win them over. kind of expected the results and would expect nothing less from the process... fail for sure

I disagree. Patti is one squared away chick and I think she has done a great job through the whole process.  They had a vetting system and at the end of the day only 21 teams out of 1,200 could be selected.

 i disagree with your assessment of my assessment... heheh.. not questioning her part really but having no published criteria to reference and discuss, left input to your best guess in what they needed for selection perspective.. putting down the basics asked in forms, i am fairly certain that most groups are very much "qualified". Selecting the best 40 resumes was really not what the initial advertised NPS implied, something about the first 18 qualified groups i think i recall reading in posts.. .. i know i personally pushed to get our paperwork in not going into gross detail of what they may have ultimately wanted to read to set apart from groups. good on the professionals who have resumes to travel the world but ALL qualified groups should have been put in that hat of selection.. Kind of reminds me of job fairs for the shipyard in Bremerton... 4000 applicants - 200 jobs.. tough perspective ,  but i can tell you with all honesty, that my group was equipped and qualified or i would not have submitted for this, not my style..... (not that i ever expected selection with the numbers of groups, spoke this perspective from the first day i heard over 1000 groups. just thought they would have made it more a open lottery from all those meeting criteria rather than a ranked system)

[blackveltbowhunter]

They were.   Maybe my reading comprehension was off, but the MINIMUM qualifications seemed very clear to me. After that came preferred experience. They assembled the pool of highly qualified based on those subjective preferences. That also seemed clear to me.  After that it was luck, due to sheer volume of applicants.

[birddogdad]

They were.   Maybe my reading comprehension was off, but the MINIMUM qualifications seemed very clear to me. After that came preferred experience. They assembled the pool of highly qualified based on those subjective preferences. That also seemed clear to me.  After that it was luck, due to sheer volume of applicants.

your stating my position.. minimum to qualify, not top 40 and lotto... based on excess info provided fact or fiction..

[blackveltbowhunter]

The lotto picking 40 was a very large pool, not ranked top 40. At least thats how I read it. Out of the 40 pulled the top 21 proceed to the hunt.

[WSU]

I'm sure there were hundreds of qualified groups.  It's impossible to define what makes a group most qualified.  Our group had experienced wilderness hunters, folks that had shot goats in other countries and hunted at high, mountainous terrain, an Army ranger with that experience plus medical training, others with first aid training, hunters ed instructors, etc.  Certainly qualified to hike into the mountains and shoot goats, but I'm sure there were dozens of more or equally qualified groups too. 

Hopefully it goes well and NPS uses these types of programs in the future.

[Chukarhead]

They were.   Maybe my reading comprehension was off, but the MINIMUM qualifications seemed very clear to me. After that came preferred experience. They assembled the pool of highly qualified based on those subjective preferences. That also seemed clear to me.  After that it was luck, due to sheer volume of applicants.

your stating my position.. minimum to qualify, not top 40 and lotto... based on excess info provided fact or fiction..

I'm not looking for an argument here, but my understanding from the email was that the 40 applications were the result of a random draw from all qualified applications (my assumption is that the pool of qualified applications was very, very large).  Those 40 pulled randomly were winnowed down to the final 21 under greater scrutiny from a collection of NPS and WDFW folks. 

I understand that I'm biased in this opinion, but it seems very much like Dr. Happe/NPS is doing absolutely everything reasonable people could ask of her/them in this situation.  The level of information developed for the lethal removal phase and the amount of coordination required between all phases of this operation is really astounding.  I've been thoroughly impressed.

[birddogdad]

They were.   Maybe my reading comprehension was off, but the MINIMUM qualifications seemed very clear to me. After that came preferred experience. They assembled the pool of highly qualified based on those subjective preferences. That also seemed clear to me.  After that it was luck, due to sheer volume of applicants.

your stating my position.. minimum to qualify, not top 40 and lotto... based on excess info provided fact or fiction..

I'm not looking for an argument here, but my understanding from the email was that the 40 applications were the result of a random draw from all qualified applications (my assumption is that the pool of qualified applications was very, very large).  Those 40 pulled randomly were winnowed down to the final 21 under greater scrutiny from a collection of NPS and WDFW folks. 

I understand that I'm biased in this opinion, but it seems very much like Dr. Happe/NPS is doing absolutely everything reasonable people could ask of her/them in this situation.  The level of information developed for the lethal removal phase and the amount of coordination required between all phases of this operation is really astounding.  I've been thoroughly impressed.

"I evaluated all the applications, and pulled out those that were the most highly qualified.  From that pool I then did a random draw of 40 applications, asked some colleagues from the NPS and WDFW to review that more restricted pool, and selected 21 groups (yes – 3 more than I originally intended)."

most highly qualified and qualified are very different in meaning, again making the original submission standard criteria different than expectations …. quote directly from my email reply.. not going to argue, just stating facts here.. 

[Karl Blanchard]

I think we are all a little confused bird. What did they not tell us that would have changed how you applied? We knew they wanted to know about wilderness experience, mountaineering experience, hunting experience, medical training, and public relations skills. We know this because it was on the application. Did you not put down the most relevant experiences based on those sections of the application? We treated it just like a job application. Reformatted the pdf so we could type in our info vs hand scribble,  we wrote a very good (in my opinion) cover letter, and provided specific dates and info on all training and skills courses for the group along with references. Compiled it into a well formatted package for submission. Pretty clear what they were looking for imo

[Limhangerslayer]

They were.   Maybe my reading comprehension was off, but the MINIMUM qualifications seemed very clear to me. After that came preferred experience. They assembled the pool of highly qualified based on those subjective preferences. That also seemed clear to me.  After that it was luck, due to sheer volume of applicants.

your stating my position.. minimum to qualify, not top 40 and lotto... based on excess info provided fact or fiction..

I'm not looking for an argument here, but my understanding from the email was that the 40 applications were the result of a random draw from all qualified applications (my assumption is that the pool of qualified applications was very, very large).  Those 40 pulled randomly were winnowed down to the final 21 under greater scrutiny from a collection of NPS and WDFW folks. 

I understand that I'm biased in this opinion, but it seems very much like Dr. Happe/NPS is doing absolutely everything reasonable people could ask of her/them in this situation.  The level of information developed for the lethal removal phase and the amount of coordination required between all phases of this operation is really astounding.  I've been thoroughly impressed.

"I evaluated all the applications, and pulled out those that were the most highly qualified.  From that pool I then did a random draw of 40 applications, asked some colleagues from the NPS and WDFW to review that more restricted pool, and selected 21 groups (yes – 3 more than I originally intended)."

most highly qualified and qualified are very different in meaning, again making the original submission standard criteria different than expectations …. quote directly from my email reply.. not going to argue, just stating facts here.. 

just accept it, you didn't get drawn.  You act like you were going to change your application if you knew more info?   you should of put the truth no matter what, and I'm not saying you didn't.  But in your replies, if you would of known a way to stretch your app a little you'd of done it?  Either way, just be happy that there are some hunters that deserve just as much as you think you do that will be going in to hunt some goats.

[Karl Blanchard]

Very strong likelyhood that there were groups that were "more qualified" than the groups that were ultimately selected that got nuked by the draw.

Also, this isn't a state run lottery.  I feel they went above and beyond. Patti could have dropped apps simply because a name was hard to pronounce but she didn't. She went through a lot of effort to make this as fair and calculated as she could.