People are being completely foolish by not believing that this thing is 100% about MONEY!

The states are robbing the non-residents because what are they going to do, vote them out of office?

USO is suing the states so he can have more guide hunts to generate more revenues.

Lets talk about reality here for just one fricking second...

In the vast majority of all western states, if not all, the body in charge of hunting (be it the Fish & Game Dept, the Wildlife Dept or what ever they call it in that state) are funded completely by revenues generated from tag fees and hunting license purchases.

The state is not appropreating funds to these departments from the State's General Fund. These Deparments are NOT like the public university system that uses monies from the State's General Fund to operate and thus that is how they explain non-resident tuitions being 3 times more.

The bodies that control hunting in these states do not follow this model of funding. A non-hunter or non-fisherman living in Tucson is not contributing to operating budget of the Arizona Game and Fish.

The Arizona Game and Fish's operating budget comes from the purchase of fishing licenses, hunting licenses and big game tags.

Now lets take it a step further, since the operating budgets of these state wildlife management bodies are not receiving funding from the state's general fund, the only monies that a resident hunter is giving this body is monies from license and tag purchases.

A resident hunter that is drawn for a deer permit north of the grand canyon will contribute a total of $48 ($25.50 license and $22.50 deer tag) to the Az G&F department's budget.

Under the new 2005 rates, a non-resident hunter that is drawn for a deer permit north of the grand canyon will contribute a total of $1319 ($113.50 for license & $1205.50) to the Az G&F department's budget. In other words, the non-resident would be paying 24 times the rate of the non-resident.

A non-resident that is UNSUCCESSFUL in drawing that same deer permit will contribute a total of $113.50 to the Az G&F operating budget. Which is more than twice as much as the successful resident contribution.

The non-residents applicants and non-residents that successfully draw tags generate much more revenue for these state bodies than the resident hunters. In Arizona, 10% of the tags are allocated for non-residents, so on a hunt with 100 tags, 90 are for residents and 10 are for non-residents. Revenues generated on that hunt, just from successfully drawn hunters...

90 residents x $48 = $4400

10 non-residents x $1320 = $13,200

What would happen to the state politicians in Arizona if they increased resident deer tags from $22 to $240?

What would happen to the state politicians in Arizona if they increased resident elk tags from $76 to $500?

What would happen to the state politicians in Arizona if they increased resident sheep permits from $184 to $1000?

You know that their days as state politicians would be numbered, HOWEVER, the VERY SAME RATE OF INCREASE happened to non-residents in Arizona.

$100 deer tags jacked up to $1200

$400 elk tags jacked up to $2400

$900 sheep tags jacked up to $5000

Here is what the more populace states should do...

I went to UCLA, a top 25 university nationally, whose current tuition is $9,000 for residents and $22,000 for non-residents (which they only pay for 1 year if they are smart and declare residency), I think that they should jack up the non-resident tuition of all the state universities from $22K to $140K per year. We will see how many kids from these western states are left in the UC and Cal State system after that rate increase.

I think that all public universities in the United States should do the very same thing. Jack up the prices for non-residents.

We will see how many people in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and the like are trying to justify the highway robbery of their game and fish departments when their state university admission become highly competitive and little Johnny can't get a college education because he didn't have the grades to get into the local state school and pop's doesn't make the $ to send him to a $35+K per year private school.

These limitations on the number of tags for non-residents, like Arizona's 10%, are rediculously low.

The mega-inflated prices for non-resident tags are criminal.

To be quite honest, while hunting is not considered "a requirement" by some, this type of taxation without representation is what caused colonies to revolt.

Nevermind that these states greed is going to be the end of hunting... once you eliminate a large number of hunters because it has become rediculously expensive to hunt, hunting will only be for the financially elite.

SA