Future of Ontario Moose Hunting

If you kill a pregnant cow in the spring, you have killed two moose plus all the potential future moose from that cows loins. Seasons should absolutely be adhered to, and it is a selfish person who thinks otherwise.

Your argue sorta falls apart when you consider the same cow moose shot "in season" in the fall still loses all the potential future moose from that cows loins.
 
In my opinion this is what happens to a resource that was managed way too long strictly for the most amount of money that could be wrung out of it. I believe that the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has managed the moose herd so incompetent that they should have to forfeit all managing legalities, rights and responsibilities to an elected group of moose hunters elected by moose hunters. Any management system at all would be better than the one being used now.

It saddens me when I see what a mess they have created. I know there are many factors that have contributed to the decline in the moose population province wide but my pet peeve is stop spraying the cuts with herbicide and killing all the plants and trees that the moose need to survive.
 
No Ontario Government has exactly been friendly to hunters regardless of what party they are. It was the PC's that canned the spring bear hunt after all.

The MNRF is underfunded and they rely too much on old data to run their models. And their is no political gain or appetite to make any kind of sweeping changes. You don't get votes in Toronto by spending time and money to rework the big game system. And without Toronto you don't form government.

Nobody really knows why the moose numbers are declining in many areas and doing ok in others and nobody with the wallet is really willing to find out. Not when they need new street cars in Toronto.

They started actively managing the calves in the WMU's around Algonquin Park over a decade ago. They said that would improve the herd. It didn't and now they have applied that failed experiment to the rest of the province. I do believe that it has probably "helped" but it is obviously not the major factor in the decline. But they have gone all in on that one failing to try and mitigate any other cause.

So going forward they can run their strategy without my 55 bucks a year plus for the tag and all the money we would have spent to facilitate our hunt.

I guess I can't complain too much, I did hunt moose for well over 40 years before things fell apart. I feel for the younger guys and those that might never have the opportunity. But no Government in Ontario is going to help us out on this one. Might take something similar to the Elk foundation or the like in a DIY move by hunters if enough can get together and actually hold together long enough without throwing each other under the bus to protect their own interests to actually change anything.
 
Your argue sorta falls apart when you consider the same cow moose shot "in season" in the fall still loses all the potential future moose from that cows loins.

The argument doesn't fall apart. A cow shot in the fall might not have been bred. A pregnant cow in the spring has. Regardless of how my argument seems to you, it is still true in the second half - dead cow equals no future offspring in that line.
 
I remember working in northern Ontario in the late 90s and by the nature of the work we saw a lot of remote country. It was an eye opener for me because I had never seen so much ideal moose habitat with such a sparse population. Then in conversations with the locals it was always "there's lots of moose". Never really mattered to me as I don't live there anyway but unfortunate that it was allowed to deplete to that level, hope for their sake it comes back.
 
In my opinion this is what happens to a resource that was managed way too long strictly for the most amount of money that could be wrung out of it. I believe that the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has managed the moose herd so incompetent that they should have to forfeit all managing legalities, rights and responsibilities to an elected group of moose hunters elected by moose hunters. Any management system at all would be better than the one being used now.

It saddens me when I see what a mess they have created. I know there are many factors that have contributed to the decline in the moose population province wide but my pet peeve is stop spraying the cuts with herbicide and killing all the plants and trees that the moose need to survive.

The moose love clear cuts after the quick growing trees and vegetation come up. Then the forestry companies spray to kill it all off to prefer conifer growth. There is something badly wrong with the draw system when groups don't draw tags, yet individual applicants often come up with multiple tags for the same party. Some people only apply as individuals because they figure their chances are better. Not supposed to work like this. The MNR has a policy of lower guaranteed group sizes for areas where their objective is to knock down moose numbers and restore woodland caribou. WMU 18A is one example. I question if caribou will EVER be restored except in game preserves. Other WMUs with much higher moose populations have large guaranteed group sizes. I have been told that the draw system cannot distinguish between groups under guaranteed size and individual applicants. Totally screwed up system, with little likelihood of reform.
 
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