How do we convince Bio's???

[curt]

Ok so we have beat the topics of season lengths and harminizing regions to reduce hunter pressure to death!!! So now the big question how do we convince the biologists to re visit their overly conservative outlooks and sort out some of these issue's!?!?!? I often look at the mangement plans and wonder wtf are these people thinking and do they actually have a freaking clue what is really going on out there!?!?! I'm not convinced!!

[Sitkaspruce]

I believe that it is not always the Bio's we should work on.

Two of the biggest are;

1- Our selves as hunters. We are own worst enemies. There is so many armchair bio's out there who think only for themselves. Especially those who want only big animals and think that all seasons should be for 4pt/6pt/ over 8yo trophy's only. We only have to look at all the posts on here to see a lot of one way thinking. We need to stop thinking with emotion and social reasons and start looking at how we can keep the hunt/fish alive as a whole.

2- Politicians. They are THE BIGGEST problem we have. Just look at some of the FN concerns, the wolf problems and how they bend to the anti's, all just to garner/keep votes. There is very few of them that even understand issues that affect our love of fish and hunt. I bet very few even been in a park, gone fishing or tasted wild game. They need to keep out of the bio's/MOE's business and do what ever Politicians do.

Bio's, for the most part, are pretty passionate about their jobs and really do have a tough job between balancing the wants of all users and maintaining a healthy population of animals. It is a job that I am not envious of.

Cheers

SS

[curt]

I can see how politicians throw a wrench into the system thats just how they role and then the guide outfitters make their bitches and gripes too but still there are some very simple fixes that would apease many hunters.

[Fisher-Dude]

^^^ Yeah what SS said. Lots of people are bitching at the region 8 bio because there's no wolf season here (yet!). But he's been putting a proposal in every regs cycle trying to get one, and gathering data from the clubs and GOs to justify it. Last time, Mr Penner said "No way I can approve this in an election year when I get a stack of letters 6 inches high from people who want NO wolf season anywhere, and two letters asking for a wolf season in region 8."

Can you blame Penner? He only did what the majority told him to do. I think we can only blame ourselves for not stepping up and demanding what we want and need, in numbers. Where's your passion? How many don't even work at the club level or join the BCWF?

Outdone by a bunch of granola munching freaks with dreadlocks. Pretty sad.

[Gunner]

God knows that I'm not making excuses for Regional Biologists,I've had more than my share of disagreements with them.They are trying to operate under severe fiscal restraints that impact their ability to inventory wildlife numbers in their areas.I've always felt that they spend too much time running computer models and not enough time in the bush.My other gripe is that they tend to listen to the GOs as to what's going on and ignore info from Residents.All in all though most of them care about they do.When they do make recommendations they are often subject to political interference. Gunner

[Deaddog]

tough job all around,....really doesnt matter what decision they make ....someone is going to be pissed about it....the real crux is the lack of dollars available to them to do proper inventory's etc....sad when our regional bios have to go to hctf to apply for money that really should be coming from their own regional budgets, bottom line is when (if) all user groups in the bush get together we may have a hope of actually getting the government to put the proper dollars into wildlife.. could easily be solved if the dollars from all hunting licenses/tags went back to wildlife...as was originally agreed many years ago by the gov't...but don't hold your breath we have way to many social "programs" to fund.

[Benthos]

i would suggest that some regulations are likely in place to be conservative because of the uncertainty with the numbers. why the uncertainty, well there is uncertainty with all population models, or any model for that matter, but when the input data is old or none existent, conservatism needs to be used in place of realism.

more funding for aerial surveys to provide more accurate numbers in support of population estimates is the first step. unfortunately in an era of fiscal restraint and lack of funds in the dirt ministries, i don't see this happening anytime soon except in those regions where there is political pressure to do so.

my two bits

[6616]

Ok so we have beat the topics of season lengths and harminizing regions to reduce hunter pressure to death!!! So now the big question how do we convince the biologists to re visit their overly conservative outlooks and sort out some of these issue's!?!?!? I often look at the mangement plans and wonder wtf are these people thinking and do they actually have a freaking clue what is really going on out there!?!?! I'm not convinced!!

So you believe managers are too conservative and you would like to know how to convince them to see things your way? Did you for example read the many threads on West Kootenay elk or the recent one on the any-buck mule deer season in the East Kootenay? You will note there are many people out there that think management is not conservative enough and are also wondering how to convince the bios to tighten up on regulations. Then we have guide-outfitters pulling a third direction for quality management and allocation. And then there's the antis. I guess what I'm saying is to get involved with the social politics of hunting through your MLA and regional managers, but leave the science to the scientists and lets quit trying to tell biologists what's sustainable and what's not because as laypersons we really aren't trained to make those calls, question them yes and get an explanation, but not to oppose them like as if we know more about game management than the bios do.

Remember many of the discussions, like whether to keep West Kootenay elk on LEH for example, are social and political decisions that managers and politicians will make. There's no use beating up the bios over those kind of things.

And then there's things like the controversial any-buck mule deer season in the Kootenays, that's a biological (sustainability) decision, and we should let the bios decide. Not let on we know more about deer management than the bios like some people on the "mulw" deer thread were doing.

So the bottom line is we don't have to convince the bios of anything. We have to convince MLAs and upper level managers if we want social change. For example, do we want to manage moose for maximum sustainable yield or for quality? - that's a social and political decision we should be involved with. But how many moose can we sustainably shoot to meet the management strategy once it's socially decided on is strictly a biological decision.

[hunter1947]

My thought have always been that a biologist should have to spend 30% of there job out there in the wild to get a good idea whats really out there in as many regions as she or he can get to ,sheep biologist in areas where sheep are as for biologist that are into elk the same goes for deer ,predators etc ,maybe the biologist do spend lots of time out there I really don't know ????.

[The Dude]

Even amongst ourselves (Resident Hunters) we can't agree on what we want. (Quality vs Quantity, 4 point vs any buck, GOS vs LEH, rut hunts, no rut hunts etc etc) Throw in the GOABC and the Anti's and the job of a Bio is one i do not envy. They basically make their recommendations made by data garnered from limited budgets and resources, and manage as best they can. Beyond that, I believe it's out of their hands.