Guys .. please help me understand your point, because I have read your statements and I'm not seeing your side.

As I understand it, the decision here is to not add any new permits, but free up the opportunity at 1 of the limited licenses. Why is that bad? I live in Massachusetts, pay huge amounts in Federal taxes, served 4 years in the Marine Corps, and if I want to hunt on Federal land in another state and I'm willing to pay more for the same license as you, pay habitat improvement fees and drop money on the travel and expenses to take part in a hunt on land ALL Americans have the right to enjoy .. why is that bad?

Because you live in Arizona you get special privileges? Bullcrap ... then the huge money the government raises in taxes from the NorthEast and in California should be only spent in our states???? Of course not .. you benefit in support of your schools and roads from the money I and my Northeast buddies pay into the national coffers... those federal lands are maintained with money that comes out of every pocket .. including mine. If you want to horde your hunting privileges on a per state basis you may as well become the People's Republic of Arizona in my eyes. I hate to break the news to you, but hunting is not a right, but a privilege. It depends on the ability of the land to sustain a huntable population of animals and requires careful management .. and that means sometimes people don't get to hunt no matter how bad they want. This information that only Arizonians pay for the habitat improvements alone is wrong .. we ALL pay. Just now, it appears that finally ALL Americans get an equal and fair shot at the same hunting privileges ... and if some resident has to "sit out" a year because his hunting brother gets lucky enough to draw one of the few coveted tags .. then welcome to the real world.

I'm with you Jay.

Can someone please tell me the number of resident applying for license and the number of sucessful people who obtained a license? Can you also do it for non-residents. I bet you will find that it's close to a 90/10 split (I know it's a 90/10 split for success.).

Also, I couldn't look find it quickly on the web but I bet federal $ amount are very close to the same amount of $'s obtained by licenses. These funds are what fund your fish and wildlife departments. In Idaho even though the federal funds are from different accounts they are still federal and are only 2% behind the license revenue.

Bottomline, my gut feel is this lawsuit was a waste of money and really won't affect you guys in Az. Only the above numbers in the first paragraph can tell for sure.

Field Mouse... out of sheer curiosity I reviewed the Annual Report for the Arizone Fish and Game.

Total Revenue for Arizona Fish and Game is about $56,000,000

Total Revenue paid by the WHOLE country aka Federal Money is about $21,000,000

We ALL pay for Arizona's Wildlife management .. but only 10% of the rest of the country gets a shot to hunt it.

$10,000,000 comes from their state lottery, so a large chunk comes from non-hunters and about $19,000,000 comes from licenses from hunters .. residents and nonresidents together.

MAjay and mouse-I know we had around 240000 applicants this year for big game tags. 10% were for non-residents and to get the draw done we allowed another 800 elk tags exclusively to non-res hunters. The USO suit mandates 100% equality in drawing thus non-res tags could be the majority based upon luck. If you want a bull elk tag as a resident the wait is usually over 5 years based on odds however some luck out and some don't. You are right that we get proportionate federal dollars. That is not the bulk of our funding. Our heritage fund from the state lottery and sales tax on local sporting goods purchases makes up the major funding. So why should a major out of state business that wants more bull tags get what they want? They are also well known for illegal use of aircraft to hunt elk. Is that who we should support? The big rub for USO is Arizona manages the herds for maximum utilization for all. We will not allow a private landowner to sell tags to outfitters on his property because the state owns the animals. The feds do not and that has been established legally.

I am supportive of giving more tags to non-res hunters up to a point but not to USO as a tag securing business. I am not supporting the privatization of hunting as someone with little money has every right to hunt without a bunch of rich boys lockin' it up. This is certainly not a move to lock up hunting in Arizona and I hope you both end up getting nice bulls at some future hunt.

gleninAZ-

I first want to say that I ALSO don't want to see any large or small "elite" organization get a majority of the tags. USO and firms like them are not my thing. I am speaking for myself and my brother who have been trying to hunt in Arizone for 10 years with no luck .. and my sister lives there. The policy of "blocking" your hunting brothers out is what caused this mess. Yes, some questionable character forced the issue in court. .. but he did "WIN" because the existing policy wasn't fair.

I also stated the numbers above of exactly where your Fish and Game money comes from, and the honest to God truth is the "majority" of it is coming from non-residents
(aka Federal money) and your lottery system. Plus the monsy generated from licenses ... 20% of that is from non-resident hunters and fisherman. Resident Arizona hunters have been reaping the rewards of a lot of people feeding their machine.

Arizona Annual Report 2002-2003

Mayja-I know quite a few people here who haven't been drawn for 10 years too. The problem is with a 35000 animal count and a couple hundred thousand people wanting to kill them. You have a 10% chance which is about what we have when you throw in the number of resident apps vs. the 7500 permits each year. I know for a fact that the majority of funds are not from out of state hunters. Our lottery is local, our purchases are local(paid from a fed agency but still local funded). We help to build the trickle tanks and other habitat improvements. Just what % of tags out of 7500 would you think is fair? We gave out 750 and added another 805 due to the USO suit. This is not a state with 200000 elk in it and if you look at a map most of it is desert so the actual hunting acreage is also limited. I do hope you and yer bro get the chance to hunt here someday just hope it isn't through USO.

glen my point to this whole thing is I want to know the numbers. I have a hard time in believing that anymore then 1 out of every 10 hunters will be from out of state. It is so expensive to do an out of state trip. The only thing that helps is a free place to crash. Given a straight up lottery. If you all find it is higher then 1in10, then correct it by raising non-resident fees. If the actual ratio is lower, then lower fees. As far as the USO I don't know them other then I guess it's a guide service w/ a tv show. Make them pay for lottery aplications. I'm 100% against the income tax system and for a usage tax.

Why would those numbers attract very many out of state hunters?

Fieldmouse-With the quality of animals here you can trust me that we will give out as much as non-res hunters can get. There is a huge amount of money out there to hunt and people lining up for tags. As far as the federal funding bit it is wrong. The 19 million in federal dollars out of our total 59 million budget is mostly generated by the sales tax on sporting goods. 144000 resident hunt licenses vs. 20000 non-res and 150000 resident fishing licenses vs. 2500 non-res. Doesn't really matter cause you can't say that the majority of a states total budget is from federal and then go in and have your way in that state on anything. That's why we have states rights so some packer from somewhere else can't tell us to step and fetch. I am sure that our fed tax dollars pay for plenty of pork in other states as well. If you think hard about this issue do you want a federal court to tell your state how to run it's fish and game department? Last time I checked there weren't any black or mexican elk so should'nt be a discrimination suit on that grounds.

No, the animals are managed and paid for by a large majority by each state. The land is public and open to anyone but once you chase an elk or a deer on public land 90% of the reason you get to chase it is thanks to local taxes, local support, local input and local public officials who know the area and what makes a species successful there.

Here in Utah we have the dedicated hunters program. If you are in the program you must spend a minimum of 8 hours year doing public service that directly helps wildlife. Sure its only 8 hours a person but when you're talking a few thousand people participating thats a lot of volunteered time by locals to make hunting Utah better. I still think non-residents should get an opportunity to hunt my state but locals should get the majority.

I sent George Taulman an e-mail stating my concerns. Here is his response:

"Kris,

We never have suggested a 50/50 split for tags only a equal chance of
drawing. If 90 % of the applications are resident then approx. 90% of the
tags should go to residents.

You are wrong about who owns the wildlife, it does belong to everyone as a
renewable natural resource. The states are charged with the management,
and because of this decision, they cannot discriminate against other
Americans.

George
USO"


So that tells you right there if 99% of the applicants are non-residents then he wants 99% of non-residents get the tags. Here the e-mail addy if you'd like to send him something.

[email protected]