Considering that non resident LEH's will bring in much more directly to the province than our current G/O model ever would, I don't think it's out of the question. I've heard GOABC say many times how non resident hunting maximizes the value of wildlife for the people of BC, so they should get a big slice of the pie. A non resident LEH that allows the winner to choose whether they want to hire an outfitter or not would be the best way to maximize value. Sheep or grizzly tags could easily bring in $5-10K instead of $1-2K.
British Columbia - Proposed regulation changes
- Thread starter 'Boo
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Considering that non resident LEH's will bring in much more directly to the province than our current G/O model ever would, I don't think it's out of the question. I've heard GOABC say many times how non resident hunting maximizes the value of wildlife for the people of BC, so they should get a big slice of the pie. A non resident LEH that allows the winner to choose whether they want to hire an outfitter or not would be the best way to maximize value. Sheep or grizzly tags could easily bring in $5-10K instead of $1-2K.
Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Yep, 18 black bears in 3,200 sq kms, in five years.
That's for just over three bears a year, spring and fall seasons combined, in pure wilderness that's larger in area than the entire lower mainland, from Hope to Vancouver. That's a pretty damn tight gig for what every one of us knows is there for bears. Goats, the band isn't worried about, and the biologists want them checked to prevent the crash as happened in Alaska, the density is unreal. I don't think we can brush off keeping a black bear hunt in an area that big as meaningless, however remote. These are the places I'm guiding, not in conflict with residents as many have kindly noted in this thread. 
Exactly
Ask residents if they would give up grizzlies in exchange for all of the moose, elk and sheep quotas given to GO's. It wouldn't be unanimous, but you know the answer to the question.
But let's look at 6-03 black bear kills - that encompasses the area that you state was kept open for black bear by the GOABC's work.
2007 R-7 NR-9
2008 R-0 NR-10
2009 R-0 NR-12
2010 R-11 NR-11
2011 R-9 NR-15
2012 R-7 NR-20
So in 5 years we had 34 bears killed by residents and 77 by non-residents. I am not sure how exactly this benefited residents so greatly. Keep in mind the kills include much easier to reach areas within 6-03 so it is likely the vast majority of black bears killed by residents were not in the conservancy.
I'll admit it's better to have an area open rather than closed, regardless of use, but the GOABC certainly didn't work at that for any reason other than their own benefit.
Thats it in a nutshell.That's fine, that is their mandate. Just don't try to sell it as a gift to residents, because any resident that wants to hunt coastal blackbears have lots of other options.
Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Admittedly, I'm out of energy now mainly because it's starting to become depressing again, through nobody's fault here. The conversation has simply gone to scary aspects that would spell ruin for my family. Gatehouse's suggestion is the way it is in other places and it's an ugly way to run it, outfitters that will do whatever they can to get an animal, a lot more desperation to get the gig and fill the tag, a lot more big money owning the show. It's also means as an outfitter you can no longer choose who you take hunting, and truly commercializes everything about it. I've been very fortunate to have a very good picture of who my clients are, so far this year three good people from this very site, then a young guy who guides in Alaska who wasn't getting a draw so he came to us, and brought his friend who was on his first wilderness hunt, a retiring family man from California on his very first big game hunt out for a real adventure not something canned, and an Italian passionate about BC who's hunted here many times before. The ways being proposed represent a future and suggestion I naturally can't take kindly too as it also assumes the arbitrary destruction of my family's business, and a couple hundred more like it. I actually think BC has an admirable system and it's held in high regard in Alaska, where outfitters float from area to area and screw things up in one place, then just move.
Suppose I'm a daft optimist because every resident (I'm one too) who I have a conversation with realizes we're not evil and we end up quite happy chatting, which often rolls into questions on guiding and just plain helping in camp to experience it. Well, except one overweight specimen at a gas station, but we didn't really have a conversation. All we want to do is hunt as well, and the outfitters aren't out to take all the animals by any measure and nowhere do they have the majority, at least I'm certainly not, I'd be startled and happy to see a resident and I've tried to bring them out. Bah, I'm rambling. I'm going to take solace in my personal opinion the current system will stand, it has to or my family goes bankrupt, and the vast majority of outfitters are not in any sort of direct competition with residents. Yes I definitely understand in areas of high population and low game numbers, like the Cariboo it is likely much different than my understanding. I think overall we've had a century of excellent big game hunting history and have hosted nearly all the greats from Keith to O'Connor with guide outfitters, and I hope it continues. I purposely sought out the most remote, most difficult to access territory I could, as I view that as the kind of hunting and experience I want to share with my boys, my clients, and my friends. It happens to have the nice side benefit of keeping me all but completely out of conflict with my other friends, who are all resident hunters as I myself am too. I feel lucky and just pray none of these ideas move forward as it would change the industry into something I would want no part of.
Suppose I'm a daft optimist because every resident (I'm one too) who I have a conversation with realizes we're not evil and we end up quite happy chatting, which often rolls into questions on guiding and just plain helping in camp to experience it. Well, except one overweight specimen at a gas station, but we didn't really have a conversation. All we want to do is hunt as well, and the outfitters aren't out to take all the animals by any measure and nowhere do they have the majority, at least I'm certainly not, I'd be startled and happy to see a resident and I've tried to bring them out. Bah, I'm rambling. I'm going to take solace in my personal opinion the current system will stand, it has to or my family goes bankrupt, and the vast majority of outfitters are not in any sort of direct competition with residents. Yes I definitely understand in areas of high population and low game numbers, like the Cariboo it is likely much different than my understanding. I think overall we've had a century of excellent big game hunting history and have hosted nearly all the greats from Keith to O'Connor with guide outfitters, and I hope it continues. I purposely sought out the most remote, most difficult to access territory I could, as I view that as the kind of hunting and experience I want to share with my boys, my clients, and my friends. It happens to have the nice side benefit of keeping me all but completely out of conflict with my other friends, who are all resident hunters as I myself am too. I feel lucky and just pray none of these ideas move forward as it would change the industry into something I would want no part of.
Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
For now. Piece by piece we can lose it all, however, and I don't think we should give up any piece- let alone 3,200q kms, an area of land easily visible from space. No residents fought it, because they didn't know about it, and it seems remote. One day black bear closures won't be so remote but rather in hunter's backyards, but they'll have to have tackled all the remote stuff like my territory first. The point is not that the Outfitter's Association is trying to protect resident's hunting, it's that by default all hunting is fought for when they rally against a closure, residents and outfitters alike benefit. It saddens me this is brushed aside so easily in the current climate, though I understand why.
I don't envy your situation Ardent. Not one bit. It is clear that you are a romantic, and sadly the current situation is not the same as it used to be. The bigger the money involved, the greater lengths people will go to keep that cash moving.
Ask your MLA if they had ever seen, for any reason, the level of backlash they got during the allocation fiasco.
Ask your MLA if they had ever seen, for any reason, the level of backlash they got during the allocation fiasco.
Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Sad fact is the vast majority of outfitters are just like me, most are BC residents with a second job and they do it because they love it, not for the profits as those are not at all what people figure they are. Put simply, you nailed it, it's a romantic's industry, except for a select few mega operations.
Our MLA said to our club 'I had never heard of an Allocation Policy and all of a sudden my office was bombarded by it" None of the MLAs had seen anything like it.
I don't bear you any ill will Ardent, I'm just being honest.Next time the topic of non residents bringing in more money comes up, expect the non res LEH idea to be floated. There are different formats that system can take, including retaining guide territories but LEH winners choose if they want a guide or not. Or maybe it never happens....but the important thing to remember is that the resident vs guide issue was put to bed in 2007, things were moving forward and then GOABC picked at that scab for the benefit of a few vocal outfitters and there isn't going to be happy times again until the status quo at GOABC changes dramatically.
So then the GOABC would happily support 100% BC resident ownership of guide territories, with NONE of them being held in trust to allow foreign ownership, right? They would support mandatory hiring of only BC residents as guides, right? Of course they don't.
In 2012 Dan Brooks wrote an interesting paper titled, The Balanced Allocation Plan: Solving the Wildlife Allocation Crisis in British Columbia. He is an outfitter so keep that in mind if you look up his paper. I found the historical perspective of the industry to be very interesting. Some out-takes that I hope Dan (now leader of the Conservative Party of BC) won't mind my posting:
That's the era for the romantics. As you can imagine, business required to support such a grant was VERY different than business required to support a $500,000 or even multi-million dollar business loan.
Our MLA's were saying the same thing. But they also kept saying, in a nutshell, "It's the Liberals or the NDP, and the NDP will take grizzly hunting away, so we are your only choice". Really?
Thats also what we heard. "what are you going to do. vote Liberal?" And the answer to that is, yeah, probably.....Most BC hunters are far more interested in moose for their freezer than grizzlies for guides. Christy Clarks Liberals completely betrayed our trust.
Yeah, the level of contempt the Liberals showed towards an absolutely huge voter base was a demonstration of their arrogance and sense of entitlement. They really need to be kicked to the curb, or at least have certain key figures turfed by the resident hunting community. I'm sure you remember, but for the benefit of other CGN members, here is what Bill Bennett posted publicly on his Facebook page when hunters said the Liberals' actions would cost them votes:
Keep in mind that in the past Bill Bennett was involved as an investor in the guiding industry:
[URL="http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Bill+Bennett+still+trying+past+behind/8145688/story.html"]http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Bill+Bennett+still+trying+past+behind/8145688/story.html[/URL]
Residentpriority (dot) ca
I urge all resident hunters to join their local organization - for PG it is the Spruce City Wildlife Association - the BCWF and Resident Priority. Then get involved in the process so we will never get played like we were.
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Thanks for that Bruce. What is the title of the book you talk about? Did the guides have to pay for their territories? If so was it some nominal amount like they do with taxi licenses? Would you like me to email you a copy of Dan Brooks' paper?
No thanks, I don't care about Dan Brook's paper.
The outfitters were handed the exclusive guiding rights to all the fabulous game areas in BC, for absolutely nothing! Zilch.
I gave the date of this happening as, "About 1954," but it could have been two years or so prior to that date. It turned out to be multi million dollar gifts to some, but the guides in poor varieties of game struggled.
Even some really good areas had it tough. Tommy Walker was given the Spatizi, based on Cold Fish Lake, often considered the best game area in all of BC. But it being so remote, nearly all his profit was taken up by the cost of flying everything in and out. Also, in the 1950s and at least part of the '60s, the outfitters only got a small fraction of the fees they get now, even considering inflation.
In the early years almost every backwoods homesteader had a licence to guide for moose around his place and most of these just fizzled out.
The name of my book is "Outposts and Bushplanes."
Bruce
Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
The issues are many and complex.
They this and we that.
When this guiding turns into investments for later sell off to foreign investors
to create private clubs is worthy of consideration.
Big money beats the little guy every time.
Douglas Lake Ranch really raises my eyebrows.
They this and we that.
When this guiding turns into investments for later sell off to foreign investors
to create private clubs is worthy of consideration.
Big money beats the little guy every time.
Douglas Lake Ranch really raises my eyebrows.
