Ontario MNR mandatory Deer Hunter Questionnaire

M

MusicianShooter

CGN frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
75   0   0
Location
SW Ontario
Hey guys.

Now apparently mine is mandatory cause I signed up for a controlled deer hunt. Didn't fill my damn tag either! Any thoughts on the implications of the " number of live deer/turkeys seen.." etc.

Not that I would *ever* second guess my naturally honest answers, but how does one's answer effect WMU management?
 
MusicianShooter said:
Hey guys.

Now apparently mine is mandatory cause I signed up for a controlled deer hunt. Didn't fill my damn tag either! Any thoughts on the implications of the " number of live deer/turkeys seen.." etc.

Not that I would *ever* second guess my naturally honest answers, but how does one's answer effect WMU management?
Click to expand...

This type of questionaire is a wildlife biologists' tool to get a sample of data from a different group of field observers. The more time a measurement is taken, the more accurate it will be.

Sask Wildlife does the same. One year the guys in my antelope hunting party saw 3 or 4 groups of antelope and we killed or wounded a particular number, whereas in previous years we had seen much larger herds in the same area. I stated this on the survey. The next year, antelope was closed across the province. Probably other hunters made similar reports, which substantiated other data.
 
I think it is a good idea to ask what game was seen. In BC they have never done it and it always bugged me. I am a very fussy shooter, often not really caring whether I shoot something, or not. I have gone deer hunting, saw maybe 15, but never fired a shot. My returns look either like there were no deer, or else I was a lousy hunter, or shooter, when the question is simply, did you kill a deer?
 
Its in your best interest to fill it out HONESTLY and send it in.

Like was said earlier, it will be used by the OMNR wildlife biologist in your WMU to get an idea of how the deer population is doing. The OMNR also makes the bear questionares manditory because they are very hard and expensive to get population estimates of. Now the lack of budget for the OMNR has caused field tech jobs to dissapear and therefore, not as many OMNR assesed population estimates, just hunter questionares (Another fact to shove in the anti-hunters face that you ARE managing the population sustainably).

Also, dont BS it and say that you saw 1000 deer then they are going to open up more tags for next year, and in 2 years the population will be lower, therefore you're eating your tag again. Again same thing dont say that you didn't see anything if you did because the OMNR will reduce tags, pop will grow and the deer could overbrowse their feeding areas and suffer in many generations to come.
 
Good question. Use to be that the questionnaire was mailed to you in the same envelope that the tag was in, this year it wasn't included. I checked online but was unable to get any info, does anyone know where I can locate a copy? Thanks.
 
Survey's are done in AB as well. Lot's of guys tell me they lie on it, I always tell them they're screwing themselves and everyone else.
Fact of the matter is budgets are small, and I suspect the bioligists Rely on this type of thing. Even back in the 70's/early 80's when part of my job was flying gamecounts in S Ab and the porcupines little "hand's on" was actually done. Usually only in the spring counting nests, and in the fall counting elk in the porcupines.
Since the a/c of choice turned from practical fixed wing to incredibly expensive rotary you can bet the actual # of hours in the air is at best 5% of what it was then, and it was pretty slim then. In the 60's/70's there was a local c/o who had and flew a supercub as part of his job. I always figured the best thing the gov't could've done was to keep that trend.
Anyway,
I always answer the quesions honestly and am comfortable believing it is the best thing I can do for both hunting opportunities and the wildlife.
 
I'm still waiting for someone to explain how any survey can help in establishing game population or anything else. If 12 deer hunters see a buck and it gets killed by one of the 12 hunters and each hunter puts one deer seen on the survey or if you see a sow with two cubs for five days did you see 3 bears or 15 for the survey. How can this give any useful accurate info to anyone?
 
The AB telephone survey is basically: how many days did you hunt for "X", and were you successfull?
Using your example, if 12 hunters had tags, and only one was able to fill the tag, the success rate was 8.3 percent.
In AB this result is available to view. From the hunters standpoint, if I'm priority 3 for a tag and have 8 zones I can be drawn for the desired tag at priority 3, one of the (admittidly smaller)factors in my choice would be the reported success rate over tha last 5 yrs.

Far as how bioligists would use the info, I'll leave that to someone more knowledgable.
 
tracker said:
i'm still waiting for someone to explain how any survey can help in establishing game population or anything else. If 12 deer hunters see a buck and it gets killed by one of the 12 hunters and each hunter puts one deer seen on the survey or if you see a sow with two cubs for five days did you see 3 bears or 15 for the survey. How can this give any useful accurate info to anyone?
Click to expand...

x2!
 
They use results from many years to determine this. Its based on sightings, success rate, gender, age, antler size, weight, ect. All will help get an idea of the population structure for age/gender. Weights, and antler measurements of deer help to establish a carrying capacity for the area eg: no food=skinner deer + smaller antlers=more tags next year, continuing trend of increased/decreased sightings OR success rate=amount of tags, younger age of deer harvested=less tags, ect. However, your hunter questionares arnt used as the entire basis for population management, there are still other surveys done.

This site has an OK 2 or 3 paragraph write up about how they use hunter questionares.
http://www.noble.org/ag/wildlife/deerfoods/PopulationMngt2.html
 
Ontario survey question #1 to #4 for deer is date deer was shot, wmu, type of deer shot (am, af, fm, ff), type of firearm used and same question for any additional tags. No weight or size in questions.
#5 For each WMU in which you hunted deer in 2009, please provide the following information relating to your activites while hunting deer. Type of firearm(s) used while hunting deer and # of days hunting in wmu using each firearm type and
# of live deer seen
# of wild turkey seen
# live wolves/coyotes seen
# wolves/coyotes killed.
same form used for moose without turkey question but they add
# of wolf/coyote scat seen? I think they mean sh*t.

Where in the "F" is the question # of bear seen that eat the moose calfs.
How about a question " did you see any moose calf hooves in bear scat during your spring activites?
Ontario MNR not too concerned about the bear population but they really want to know about wolf/coyote sh*t.
You can't manage anything if your avoiding the truth.
 
xeon said:
The number of deer seen and harvested is helpful to a biologist.
Click to expand...
Thats the problem with a survey. If you say you saw few deer then they may cut tags and if you say you saw lots of deer are they going to give more tags. As a hunter how would you answer it if tags are hard to get? I know hunters that never got a moose tag in this present system so is it because of how they answered the survey. If a survey will increase my chances of getting a moose tag than I saw 500 in my WMU this year. The truth be known I only saw 3 after spending 40 days in camp.
 
Honesty is its own reward.

If there statistics come back low, then the seasons need to be shortened to give the population a chance to improve. That was my experience with pronghorn. Now they are back and quite common. Maybe the carrying capacity of that particular zone isn't adequate for many more animals than it has, but there is more pressure. Some CGNers will have seen magazines with the reported kills per zone, per species and if applicable the lottery applications, tags and percentages. These things all add up to a body of knowledge that manages the whole of the wildlife herd.

Just because a guy cheats on his survey, doesn't mean some sharpie in the wildlife department isn't expecting a certain number of outlyer returns along the bell curve.
 
I don't send mine back anymore just for the simple fact that it pees me off that after i pay the $37 or $40(whichever it was) for the tag and then that much again for the surplus "Doe Management Tag" they want me to pay for the postage to mail the thing back to them.
 
Boston James said:
I don't send mine back anymore just for the simple fact that it pees me off that after i pay the $37 or $40(whichever it was) for the tag and then that much again for the surplus "Doe Management Tag" they want me to pay for the postage to mail the thing back to them.
Click to expand...

I refuse to complete them for the same reason.

There is also this new fangeled thing called the internet and e-mail they could also use.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom