ORIGINAL: Windwalker7
I realize the elk and bear kills are not as heavy as the deer kills.
What I am saying is....If the PGC feels that the mail in card system is good enough to get a pretty accurate count on deer kills, then why do they not trust this same method, to get a count on bear kills?
Do they feel that the mail in method of counting the bear kill would not be as accurate? They know the check station method is much better for getting an accurate count.
Yet some on here seem to feel that the mail in method is just as accurate as a check station method. Then why doesn't the PGC have mail in cards for bear?
Since this is the computer age, the most accurate method would be for hunters to register their previous year's kill when he buys his new license. If license years ran from January to January this computer method would work much better.
This would be similar to how they do it with migratory birds. You fill out a survey when you buy your stamp.
At the bear and elk check stations there is a lot of biological data collected from the dead animal that is needed for the potential of making adjustments to the future management programs. Plus with the bears it is important that each animal be checked for tags and tattoos since that is the way the population of the species is determined. For those reasons it is desirable to have check stations for those species.
With the deer though the biological data is collected at the processors, so we don’t need check stations to gather that data. While the biological data is being collected at the processing locations the teams are also collecting the harvest data used to determine the hunter reporting rate. That reporting rate is then is used to calculate the actual deer harvest based on the report cards received verses the reporting rates for the various WMUs.
Concerning the license year I am not so sure a license year that ended with the calendar year would be a wise way to go. That would put the end of the license year in the middle of the flintlock, late archery, snowshoe hare, general small game and the furbearer seasons. Many hunters and trappers would have used their deer tags during the fall seasons and then with a new license on January 1 they would have new tags to go back out for more deer after the first of the year. Plus a lot of hunters and trappers wouldend up in trouble becasue they simplyforget to get a new license in the midle of the season.
With the license year ending with the end of June it coincides with the end of the State fiscal year and also at a time when the only things people are hunting are generally groundhogs or perhaps coyotes.
R.S.Bodenhorn