wow 200 for a bull tag plus entry fees ontario

Suther said:
Did you miss the part where 1) you don't have to buy a moose license if you don't draw, and 2) the license is only $35 now?

35x12=420, +200=620. If you draw your group pays an extra $20, if you don't draw y'all save hundreds...? ($15 fee x 12 is only $180 spent on the applications)
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Did you miss the part where you pay $15 to enter the draw? This is step #1. If someone in our group does draw a tag we all pay another $35, totalling $50 at this point. Then we all split the cost of the adult tag which would take us all above what we pay right now.

We are accustomed to getting a tag every year based on our group size. With this new system there is no guarantee for us. If there is a year that we don't get an adult tag we are out $15 per person and 8 grand for our land lease.

This new system works betterfor a lot of individual hunters or small groups but doesn't work for the groups that consistently have enough people for the guaranteed group size each year.
 
Suther said:
I know it seems odd, but the science supports it. There is a surplus in the fall and you can remove part of that surplus without any negative effect on the overall population. You're basically moving them from one source of mortality to another.
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Science does not support it at all.

If you lose 30% of the calf population per year due to winter kill and predators there is no science that can prove that those 30% are the ones that would have been killed by winter kill and predators.

There are 2 facts:

1) A calf moose that is shot by a hunter will never become an adult and produce more moose.

2) Cow moose are accidentally killed thinking they were a calf.

On top of that, the massively crashed population is proof that this system did not work, a blanket open season on calves has always been a stupid idea.
 
blasted_saber said:
One factor I havent seen discussed here yet is that only a maximum of 10 people will be able to hunt on one tag.

So if your camp has 12 guys, two are out of luck.
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You do not define the group until the tag has been bought, unlike how things were before. Every application is done as individuals, so if you have guys that have been applying for years then their points totals will probably be high enough to get a couple adult tags and have 2 groups of 6 for your group of 12.
 
Fox said:
You do not define the group until the tag has been bought, unlike how things were before. Every application is done as individuals, so if you have guys that have been applying for years then their points totals will probably be high enough to get a couple adult tags and have 2 groups of 6 for your group of 12.
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I foresee a lot of confusion with that.

"I'm hunting with this guy but not that guy" even though all three of them are on the same blocking line.

Also, you're assuming a lot that the camp would draw two tags. What if the camp draws a bull and calf tag. This group can hunt Bulls but not calves while that group can hunt calves but not Bulls? That will fly like a lead balloon or be completely misunderstood.
 
blasted_saber said:
I foresee a lot of confusion with that.

"I'm hunting with this guy but not that guy" even though all three of them are on the same blocking line.

Also, you're assuming a lot that the camp would draw two tags. What if the camp draws a bull and calf tag. This group can hunt Bulls but not calves while that group can hunt calves but not Bulls? That will fly like a lead balloon or be completely misunderstood.
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I think that if you, as a hunter, as confused by what tag and hunter you are partnered with then they should probably revoke your firearms license.

You are aware that in many places there is no party hunting and guys still get together in one building to hunt in their own but stay as a group. It is a pretty wild concept in Ontario but works around the world, I am sure we can figure it out here.
 
Fox said:
I think that if you, as a hunter, as confused by what tag and hunter you are partnered with then they should probably revoke your firearms license.

You are aware that in many places there is no party hunting and guys still get together in one building to hunt in their own but stay as a group. It is a pretty wild concept in Ontario but works around the world, I am sure we can figure it out here.
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I think youre way overestimating how well this transition is going to go. Decades of hunting in one way is about to be completely upended.

I know exactly what im doing, but the amount of questions Im getting about whats going to happen next year has me concerned about the hunting population as a whole. These arent stupid people; its the fact its completely different then what theyve been doing for years.
 
blasted_saber said:
I think youre way overestimating how well this transition is going to go. Decades of hunting in one way is about to be completely upended.

I know exactly what im doing, but the amount of questions Im getting about whats going to happen next year has me concerned about the hunting population as a whole. These arent stupid people; its the fact its completely different then what theyve been doing for years.
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Then I think we should close all moose hunting for 5 years.

The population has been destroyed and needs to come back. If hunters cannot figure out a change that will be ongoing for 2 years then we have much larger problems.

They introduced calf tags around Algonquin park, have hunters not been able to figure that out? We also changed to antlerless tags for deer too, it was a while ago but hunters adapted just fine.
 
Fox said:
Science does not support it at all.

If you lose 30% of the calf population per year due to winter kill and predators there is no science that can prove that those 30% are the ones that would have been killed by winter kill and predators.

There are 2 facts:

1) A calf moose that is shot by a hunter will never become an adult and produce more moose.

2) Cow moose are accidentally killed thinking they were a calf.

On top of that, the massively crashed population is proof that this system did not work, a blanket open season on calves has always been a stupid idea.
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I never said a blanket open season on calfs is a good idea, as it is clearly not. However, SOME amount of calf harvest is absolutely acceptable, and the science supports that. Look up "Compensatory Mortality" and "Additive Mortality", calf hunting (within reasonable limits) is compensatory mortality, whereas bull hunts are typically additive mortality. I have no skin in this game, as a BC resident I can't hunt Moose in Ontario either way I don't think..? I'm just trying to convey what science says on the topic so others can make an informed decision.

I am aware that at face value, it would seem that killing any amount of calves is a bad idea, but you're looking at it from an individual perspective not a population perspective, and things that have an impact at the individual level don't necessarily translate to the population level.

Young said biologically, harvesting calves emulates natural mortality more closely than a bull-only hunt. Because fewer calves survive through winter than any other age category, a higher percentage of calves that are harvested by hunters would die over the winter anyway--either from starvation or predators. Biologists call this compensatory mortality.
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"Most calves and fawns will soon die. Only the luckiest and fittest will survive. Therefore either hunters or Mother Nature can take them. The logical harvesting strategy is to take calves or fawns during the fall hunting seasons, before winter can waste them.”

-Valerius Geist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Calgary, Alberta, and leading authority on wild ungulates.
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Of course, wtf would Val Geist know, hes only been studying ungulates for 50 years...

(source for the quotes: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=52)
 
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Suther said:
I never said a blanket open season on calfs is a good idea, as it is clearly not. However, SOME amount of calf harvest is absolutely acceptable, and the science supports that. Look up "Compensatory Mortality" and "Additive Mortality", calf hunting (within reasonable limits) is compensatory mortality, whereas bull hunts are typically additive mortality.





Of course, wtf would Val Geist know, hes only been studying ungulates for 50 years...

(source for the quotes: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=52)
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The open season on calves with no regulation is what had gone on since tags were introduced, what, 40+ years now, with a steady decline in the population.

Sure he knows ungulates but he is assuming that the calves being shot are the ones who would have died anyway over the winter, which is a stupid over simplification. Think about it, if there is a need for 50 calves to be killed by wolves and bears to sustain their population do you really think that taking out 50 by hunters would reduce the number that bears and wolves take out? The fact is that is less cows and calves are shot by hunters than more have a chance to make it through the winter and based on percentages more will become breeding adults. In a good chunk of Ontario the moose population is well below where it should be and the hunter density too high, this is why these changes need to be made. In some zones it should remain 1 point for an adult animal of a calf but in many zones all cow and calf hunting needs to be closed if we want there to be moose for our grandkids.
 
Fox said:
The open season on calves with no regulation is what had gone on since tags were introduced, what, 40+ years now, with a steady decline in the population.

Sure he knows ungulates but he is assuming that the calves being shot are the ones who would have died anyway over the winter, which is a stupid over simplification. Think about it, if there is a need for 50 calves to be killed by wolves and bears to sustain their population do you really think that taking out 50 by hunters would reduce the number that bears and wolves take out? The fact is that is less cows and calves are shot by hunters than more have a chance to make it through the winter and based on percentages more will become breeding adults. In a good chunk of Ontario the moose population is well below where it should be and the hunter density too high, this is why these changes need to be made. In some zones it should remain 1 point for an adult animal of a calf but in many zones all cow and calf hunting needs to be closed if we want there to be moose for our grandkids.
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No, hes not making that assumption. Studies show that there is significant overlap between the two groups, and REASONABLE hunting of calves does not have a population-level impact.

YOU are making assumptions though, you're assuming that wolves/bears will take the same number of calves regardless of how many are on the landscape, which is not the case. (I would suspect bears are not a big mortality factor for calves at that point as well, but thats a whole different topic. Here in BC, when the fawns and calves first drop bears hit them hard, but after a month or so bear predation drops off significantly.)

No regulation of calf hunting is a completely different topic, and as you point out is a good way to destroy the population. Any species which is below population objectives should be managed accordingly, and unregulated calf hunting is definitely not the right way to go about it.
 
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Suther said:
No regulation of calf hunting is a completely different topic, and as you point out is a good way to destroy the population. Any species which is below population objectives should be managed accordingly, and unregulated calf hunting is definitely not the right way to go about it.
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Actually it is not, the whole purpose of this entire process change in Ontario is due to unregulated calf hunting and the destruction of the moose population throughout most of the province. In Ontario, up until this year, you could buy a license to hunt moose for under $50 and be able to shoot a calf during an open season in almost every zone in the province. There were a few exceptions to that rule but for the most part there was no restriction. Moose in areas close to highly populated parts of Ontario had their populations decimated due to this happening over 50 years.

The talk was always as you said, you are trying to hunt the moose that would die anyway over the winter. The problem is that there were compounding issues. There were 2 year old cows shot when people thought they were calves with mom. Predators were still taking the required calves out of the equation, with wolf and bear numbers not going down. Increased access to hunting lands via ATVs and 4x4 trucks went up. We also had a selective adult tag system, with a draw, when a group got a cow tag they would sometimes shoot the cow and the calf get away, which makes it significantly harder for that calf to make it through the winter.

The way Ontario managed the moose population for the last 50 years was a bloody joke. I want them to move to a bull only situation with a minimum number of points or spread, similar to what is done in northern states and many provinces. Draw for the bull, party hunt on that tag if you want but a bull moose for a gang of guys is a pretty dang good meat haul.
 
Suther said:
Yes and no. Calfs are the least likely to make it through the winter, so there is a certain amount that can be harvested without any real impact on the population long term. But this has to be done within reason, you can't give everyone a calf tag and assume the population will be fine.
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That's the problem, for years and years everyone was given a calf tag and it wasn't until the last couple years that they've started limiting calf tags.

Ontario's poor moose numbers and current changes are a direct result of years upon years of harvesting too many calves. Hopefully its not too little, too late.
 
I live right on the dividing line between wmu 21a and 19, I regularly hunt both. Got a cow in 19 this year. For the last ten years, I have had a tag every two years. Guys like me will be at the bottom of the barrel in the new system. On a side note, this year I have seen more moose hunters from down south than ever before. Hundreds of vehicles with hundreds of quads. 21a and 19 are crawling with people right now, I'm not even going out till snowmobile season. If I see a cow and a calf together, I will probably take the calf. If I take the cow, I've basically sentenced the calf to death anyway. In any case, there are not a lot of calves taken up here.
 
Fox said:
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The way Ontario managed the moose population for the last 50 years was a bloody joke. I want them to move to a bull only situation with a minimum number of points or spread, similar to what is done in northern states and many provinces. Draw for the bull, party hunt on that tag if you want but a bull moose for a gang of guys is a pretty dang good meat haul.
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I was hoping for a spike bull General tag, 3 or less points, with bigger bulls on a draw. No cows or calves.

The problem is too many people just blast away at brown hair and would count points after the moose is down.
 
coreyd said:
Did you miss the part where you pay $15 to enter the draw? This is step #1. If someone in our group does draw a tag we all pay another $35, totalling $50 at this point. Then we all split the cost of the adult tag which would take us all above what we pay right now.

We are accustomed to getting a tag every year based on our group size. With this new system there is no guarantee for us. If there is a year that we don't get an adult tag we are out $15 per person and 8 grand for our land lease.

This new system works betterfor a lot of individual hunters or small groups but doesn't work for the groups that consistently have enough people for the guaranteed group size each year.
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I’ve been in your exact situation. Large group, land leases etc. While I see the issue and your concern, I still think this is the better way for everyone across the province. No matter what, someone won’t be happy.
 
memaquay said:
I live right on the dividing line between wmu 21a and 19, I regularly hunt both. Got a cow in 19 this year. For the last ten years, I have had a tag every two years. Guys like me will be at the bottom of the barrel in the new system. On a side note, this year I have seen more moose hunters from down south than ever before. Hundreds of vehicles with hundreds of quads. 21a and 19 are crawling with people right now, I'm not even going out till snowmobile season. If I see a cow and a calf together, I will probably take the calf. If I take the cow, I've basically sentenced the calf to death anyway. In any case, there are not a lot of calves taken up here.
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You still might be OK because they give out so many tags in that area. I was with a group that hunted Geraldton for 30 years with lots of success but the last time we went(over 10 years ago) we saw little moose sign and alot more hunters. The older fellas said it was sure not the same as when they started hunting the area.
 
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