Ontario Improving Moose Management and Hunting Allocations

1) BULL TAGS ONLY (a legal bull now becomes a bull 5 years old or older). Don’t know how a 5 year old bull looks? Do some research and if you can’t be sure the bull is that old then don’t shoot!
2) ONE TAG ONE BULL ONE HUNTER You really have like 10 hunters for one moose? Seriously?
3) $500 TAGS to start! If you want to hunt then hunt. Time to separate the hunters from the guys that think this is just an excuse to socialize. You’re clogging up the system.

Why in the hell are you idiots shooting cows and calves? YOU are the problem! And all the cheap hunters that don’t want to pay any money into conservation with a $500 tag but will buy a $70,000 lariat top of the line truck, $50,000 toy hauler, $15,000-$20,000 quad or side by side and then drive a whole day half way across the province to hunt...and then complain there’s no moose or they can’t get drawn or that hunting is getting too expensive!?

Seriously YOU are the problem. Time to take the bull by the horns, buy you’re own damn land, leave the beaver swamps, start being a boss and take control of the ####ty situation you are part of and whenever you see the conservation officers remind them of the ####ty job their managers do.

For god sake STOP SHOOTING COWS and CALVES and immature BULLS you need the cows to produce more moose and the young calves to grow up! Is this really that complicated of an issue? And if the bears and wolves start increasing their numbers because now there’s more moose to eat then reduce the proportion of predators accordingly.
 
umchorn2 said:
1) BULL TAGS ONLY (a legal bull now becomes a bull 5 years old or older). Don’t know how a 5 year old bull looks? Do some research and if you can’t be sure the bull is that old then don’t shoot!
2) ONE TAG ONE BULL ONE HUNTER You really have like 10 hunters for one moose? Seriously?
3) $500 TAGS to start! If you want to hunt then hunt. Time to separate the hunters from the guys that think this is just an excuse to socialize. You’re clogging up the system.

Why in the hell are you idiots shooting cows and calves? YOU are the problem! And all the cheap hunters that don’t want to pay any money into conservation with a $500 tag but will buy a $70,000 lariat top of the line truck, $50,000 toy hauler, $15,000-$20,000 quad or side by side and then drive a whole day half way across the province to hunt...and then complain there’s no moose or they can’t get drawn or that hunting is getting too expensive!?

Seriously YOU are the problem. Time to take the bull by the horns, buy you’re own damn land, leave the beaver swamps, start being a boss and take control of the ####ty situation you are part of and whenever you see the conservation officers remind them of the ####ty job their managers do.

For god sake STOP SHOOTING COWS and CALVES and immature BULLS you need the cows to produce more moose and the young calves to grow up! Is this really that complicated of an issue? And if the bears and wolves start increasing their numbers because now there’s more moose to eat then reduce the proportion of predators accordingly.
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While I agree with you on some points I disagree on others.

Stop shooting calves- agreed and should be a good practice.

Yes it would be good to get the point across to the MNR about it being poorly managed. Part of this is due to lack of funding from what they say but who knows where the truth lies in that.

Paying $500 for a tag- even with this extra revenue I could not see how you will make a government agency more efficient by shoveling dollars at it. They would likely piss it away. This would also mean hunting needs to becoming something for people with more money. This statement is not surprising coming from the other threads
you haunt. Why does hunting need to becoming a rich person's game in your mind? Does the thought of someone going up north to hunt crown land and camp in it while doing so offend you? Does a savage axis, Remington 783 or Mossberg 4x4 in the same calibre as a high end and cost rifle do a less efficient job for the purposes we are discussing? In the end I would say the hunter's proficiency with the firearm and knowing their own limits about how far they can accurately shoot with the gun in question is more important.
 
I fail to see how $500 for a moose tag is a lot of money and makes things a rich person sport? That’s $0.42 per pound of moose assuming you shoot a fully grown 1200 pound bull...much cheaper than pork.

And if it takes $500 tags to drop the amount of Ontario moose hunters from close to 100,000 to maybe 10,000 then you can at least get a tag in the zone you want which in itself is valuable as it it will save you time and money. For example my 2012 Chevy Silverado gets 18 MPG on highway and costs me about 20 cents per KM. So I’m spending close to $20 per 100KM. If I drive less it costs me less. Plus all the years guys have been wasting to draw a lousy tag...one guy said 19 years!! Is this true...how can anyone still have hope after 19 years of losing!! Simply unacceptable.!!!

Now I’m 34 years old have a net worth of $500,000 and make between $100,000-$125,000 per year does that make me rich? Is $500 for a tag really that unaffordable when every day it takes me away from work I lose $500. Get real. Hunters should be paying more to hunt and into conservation. $400 of the tag fees should go directly to the moose fund where the money is used to directly undertake initiatives to boost moose survival, density, health and enforce anti poaching patrols or what not.

For guys like me who are in the busiest most productive times of their lives and have 3 weeks vacation and have to bid vacation weeks based on seniority, things are even harder than a retired guy. It’s not like I can take as much time as I want to look for moose and then make a trip all over to get one.
 
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well I will have to argue against everyone saying don't shoot the calves.

Hunting has changed a lot over the last 35 years that I have been hunting.

back then you could always buy a general tag and depending on what zone you were in it might be good for bull and cow/calf.

as the number of hunters increased and moose decreased the province instituted hunting draws for most zones. yes you can still get a general moose tag but your traveling to the far north to find zones where the tag is valid.

the zone I mostly hunt went to a bull draw with a calf draw as well, no antlerless tag that would allow for shooting cows. that was about 20 years of so ago. Now I see more moose in that zone then anything else, lots of cows and calves, usually saw at least one cow calf pair every day hunting. Big Bulls well those buggers have gotten smarter it seems, I only saw 1 good bull in the week of hunting my brother saw a few as well, but no tags.

The lottery / dray system we have here is based on individual priority, you need to be priority 4 or 5 to be guaranteed of a bull tag. Calf is easier usually 50% of priority 0 get drawn, so if you apply for calf tag you have a fair chance of getting drawn in back to back years. Tags are not transferable, but you can register to have partner tags but you must be in "contact" with your hunting partner and only one tag is valid. There are no party tags or party priority for draws. If you want to hunt moose every year you need enough friends who are going to be able to go hunting with you every year and you will be sharing a moose 5 or 6 ways.

The price of entering into a draw I think is $3 per draw, and you can only apply for a certain number of draws in each group, you cant apply for a bull draw, antlerless draw and a calf draw in the same year, moose tags are all in one group and you can only apply for one.

the next zone west they didn't go to a Bull ad Calf draw, the numbers of moose there is dismal, its now a bull draw only and it takes 6 or 7 years to draw a tag. It will eventually rebound but going to take a lot more time.

A calf moose only has about 50% chance of survival its first winter, chances get a lot worse if there are a lot of bears or wolves. Wolves tend to be a lot harder on deer then on moose so if there are lots of deer moose calves will have a bit better chance. So by cancelling the antlerless (cow) tags hunters were no longer taking out the breading stock, it takes very few mature bulls to service the available cows in an area. A female calf wont become breading stock for at least 2 years.

so in my experience the calf draw is much more sustainable then having an antlerless draw. I have also spoken with a few of the wildlife biologist at the various forestry companies I used to do contract work with and they agreed with what I was seeing in the woods. But I understand how many guys don't want to shoot calves, its hard to watch that cow hang around looking for an opportunity to stomp your head in when you have your back turned.
 
In my mind if you priced the tags that way it would drop the number of tags being applied for. This would mean better chances for the hunter but the flip side is that the ministry would also lose revenue meaning less effective enforcement or use of cash for sustainability as well. This would benefit the hunter but in all likelihood would result in higher poaching as well.

I will defer to wood chopper in regard to trends as I havent been hunting moose that long to see how the trends changed
 
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry is quite transparent in publishing draw tag allocations. It would be nice to see the same openness in accounting for those free-to-them tags of outfitters who may have a few cottages that they rent to tourists at escalated prices because they include access to your resources in form of guaranteed year after year moose tags. If you don't think there is a 4-tier system with regular joes at the bottom applying like suckers then you don't have a full understanding of how the system works - the deep pocket clients basically buy a moose tag included in their cabin rent, the first nations and predators are permitted to go unregulated, and the rest of Ontario hunters wring our hands trying to find best way to work the draw system as a multiyear-year plan toward that one successful year of drawing a bull.
 
See this where I like hearing the opinion of guys who have been doing it longer than I. London shooter I was not aware of that situation but it doesn't surprise me. I do take issue with the government jumping their prices to compete with these similar situations because then it will be very obvious average joe has no leverage in this issue.
 
A bit off topic but I recently read in O O O doors . that Sweden is 42 % the size of Ontario but has over ten times the moose population ??. Shouldn,t the Feds just do what Sweden does regaurding moose populations
 
LE303 said:
A bit off topic but I recently read in O O O doors . that Sweden is 42 % the size of Ontario but has over ten times the moose population ??. Shouldn,t the Feds just do what Sweden does regaurding moose populations
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In the mid 1980's when the then MNR started their lottery program for moose tags they used the same sort of comparison except it was Ontario to Finland and said that this new Moose tag lottery would double and perhaps even triple the amount of Moose in Ontario. In retrospect their lottery idea has been a major fail.
 
Londonshooter said:
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry is quite transparent in publishing draw tag allocations. It would be nice to see the same openness in accounting for those free-to-them tags of outfitters who may have a few cottages that they rent to tourists at escalated prices because they include access to your resources in form of guaranteed year after year moose tags. If you don't think there is a 4-tier system with regular joes at the bottom applying like suckers then you don't have a full understanding of how the system works - the deep pocket clients basically buy a moose tag included in their cabin rent, the first nations and predators are permitted to go unregulated, and the rest of Ontario hunters wring our hands trying to find best way to work the draw system as a multiyear-year plan toward that one successful year of drawing a bull.
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You nailed it, thats a very good description of how it really is.
 
LE303 said:
A bit off topic but I recently read in O O O doors . that Sweden is 42 % the size of Ontario but has over ten times the moose population ??. Shouldn,t the Feds just do what Sweden does regaurding moose populations
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Yep, absolutely they should be. Theres no need to reinvent the wheel, using an idea that works well is only common sense.
Its quite obvious that our current system is going from bad to worse.
 
I like the idea of multiple pools.....theoretically up to 5 or 10 pools per WMU

for example year one you get into pool 1 or 10 depending what lesser then move up a rung for every year you stay in the draw till you get a cow or bull tag then revert to the 2nd lowest rung and so on.... this way eventually all hunters in a zone should get a fair chance if they stick in the game long enough


- no tag transfers, if you declare to the MNR that you can not hunt your bull tag due to illness or whatever you can turn it in and have that tag reallocated to several randomly selected persons (who are known by the MNR not the hunter) as the next standby to receive the tag. benefit to the person surrendering their tag to maintain or only go down 1 rung on their draw position. things happen in life and this would benefit both parties.

- require the person who's tag is used to by physically present with the game animal shot to a certain point of custody ie leaving the camp to the main roads again or town (some defined boundry)

- zoo's have programs where animals are bred in a way to maintain a good genetic variability to prevent defects from interbreeding. I just thought of this while sitting at the computer but possibly some of the money taken could be investing in wildlife breeding management programs where mature animals are moved to a different location on occasion to ensure a health gene pool. I noticed several moose out where I was with "White" features.... We have seen 1 cow several times over a few years with white back legs (same or different one?) also this year I saw a cow with a "White" head. It is possible that this recessive gene is being expressed because of a smaller gene pool in the area that has expanded but carried its recessive trait.
 
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Jay said:
Personally, I think the calf hunt is a pure tax grab and I think it should end.

Is there anywhere else in the world that manages their moose population by allowing a calf hunt?

I also think management that protects predators, such as the restrictions wrt wolf/coyote hunting AND the previously cancelled spring bear hunt, is to the detriment of ALL other game species...

Cheers
Jay
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^^^ It's funny no one seems to get that..
 
Jay said:
I also think management that protects predators, such as the restrictions wrt wolf/coyote hunting AND the previously cancelled spring bear hunt, is to the detriment of ALL other game species... Cheers Jay
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Yep. Failing to manage one aspect of the ecological pyramid (particularly predator species) is a virtual guarantee that your attempt at managing the others (such as the game species herbivores) will be ineffective.
 
woodchopper said:
A calf moose only has about 50% chance of survival its first winter, chances get a lot worse if there are a lot of bears or wolves. Wolves tend to be a lot harder on deer then on moose so if there are lots of deer moose calves will have a bit better chance. So by cancelling the antlerless (cow) tags hunters were no longer taking out the breading stock, it takes very few mature bulls to service the available cows in an area. A female calf wont become breading stock for at least 2 years.

so in my experience the calf draw is much more sustainable then having an antlerless draw. I have also spoken with a few of the wildlife biologist at the various forestry companies I used to do contract work with and they agreed with what I was seeing in the woods. But I understand how many guys don't want to shoot calves, its hard to watch that cow hang around looking for an opportunity to stomp your head in when you have your back turned.
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I agree with you. A calf harvest, as part of a good management plan on the whole, can be a good strategy. You're emulating that natural mortality that you mention, while saving reproductive adult cows to maintain recruitment.
 
Northshore said:
First and foremost I would like to see them stop spraying herbicide chemicals on all cut over areas before and after planting.
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Ain't that the truth. Nothing like killing all the browse for deer and moose just as it gets to good eating stages. I didn't actually believe they did that (figured it was just an old myth), until I did so research. you can't wipe out the food source over a huge area and expect the animals to live there. I get there are forestry concerns as that too is a struggling industry, but there has to be a happy medium in there.
 
The guys who manage moose in Ontario don’t give a crap about a tax grab—they have nothing to do with the money. Your moose liscense money goes into the general fund—MNR has no control over that.
Tourist outfitters have had their tags reduced at least as much as the general public and many of them hunt moose in areas which you need an airplane to reach.
There never was just a calf hunt-you bought a calf tag in order to hunt and enter the draw then found a buddy who drew an adult tag to party hunt with. Parties of residents in Northwestern Ontario changed daily—sometimes twice a day.
For 30 years the system worked well—I tag 11calves in a row—it’s all the moose my wife and I needed. That wasn’t the only moose I shot lots were tagged by other party members present.
Loss of the logging industry resulted in no bush road maintenance and that equals no access. Lots of areas in 21a I could hunt from my car—after logging ceased those roads required a 4-wheel drive truck then after a few years you needed a ATV 4-wheeler and then you need an Argo. Many areas now are completely inaccessible.
The MNR or whatever they call it now has no control over Native harvest,the politicians won’t even allow them to speak to each other and the treaty’s are pretty clear. Predator management is also handled by politicians—it wasn’t the MNR who cancelled the Spring bear hunt.
You’re not getting anywhere talking to the MNR—you need to talk to your MPP
 
FishHog said:
Ain't that the truth. Nothing like killing all the browse for deer and moose just as it gets to good eating stages. I didn't actually believe they did that (figured it was just an old myth), until I did so research. you can't wipe out the food source over a huge area and expect the animals to live there. I get there are forestry concerns as that too is a struggling industry, but there has to be a happy medium in there.
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We hunted 12B for years until the group size for a bull went from 3 eventually ending up at 13! Bowwater (I believe) was the American logging company that was working there and we'd see signs posted over the years warning not to walk thru certain cuts due to spraying herbicide. The signs stated which chemical and were written in both English and Aboriginal.
 
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