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Hunting Oregon

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Hunting Oregon

Postby Swede » 04 01, 2021 •  [Post 1]

Oregon is divided pretty much down the middle from north to south by the Cascade mountain range. This year Oregon requires archery hunters to draw for an east side deer tag. There is a plan to put the productive east side archery elk hunts on a draw only basis in 2022. Do you think this will ultimately improve deer and elk hunting in the State? Will it improve hunting on the east side at the expense of the west side?
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Re: Hunting Oregon

Postby 7mmfan » 04 02, 2021 •  [Post 2]

I'm not totally familiar with OR but I'm assuming it's basically the same geographical layout as WA with similar division of animals throughout the state, minus maybe a significant population of whitetail. In WA our elk herds and mule deer herds have been struggling for some time. Lots of hunters, a few bad winters, uncontrolled tribal hunting and a booming predator population all are taking their toll. There is a growing segment of hunters in our state that would like to see all of eastern WA go draw only for mule deer and elk. I have mixed feelings on the subject.

One main point you brought up Swede, making the east side draw only at the expense of the west side, rings true to me. I live close to pretty decent blacktail hunting. Frankly, I don't see an increase in hunters killing that many more deer, but I do see it making the quality of the hunt lower, and the difficulty of the hunt much higher. Maybe more dumb spikes and forkies get shot, so the state would probably propose an APR to compensate. Same would go for elk I suppose. They will just disappear into the jungle and not come out so I don't see a significant increase in hunters really killing that many more animals, just making the hunt worse overall for others.

Another issue is hunter recruitment. We want to get our kids out hunting. I think most kids are ok not seeing animals killed, until they start hunting. Then they just want opportunity. By going draw only and applying mass restrictions to the areas that are OTC, you make it hard for kids to find success.

Lastly, In our state, with the lack of predator management that we have, going draw only might increase deer/elk numbers, but it's going to likewise increase predator numbers and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Tribal hunters also won't stop killing in mass. If anything, less hunters and competition means they probably kill more. I think going draw only in our state means lost opportunity and no real gain of any kind.
I hunt therefore I am. I fish therefore I lie.
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Re: Hunting Oregon

Postby Lefty » 04 02, 2021 •  [Post 3]

That question could get extremely complicated and has an incredible amount of variables.
With most of today's game populations many hunters feel they do not have enough opportunities. And most hunters want to kill something always.

For me my biggest concern for wildlife management is who is making the management decisions, and who will get to make those choices.
Look at the fiasco that some are making about many hunts that have become political moves, grizzlies and wolves


Editorials reflect the views of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board. The board operates independently of the newsroom.

The hunt unleashed a frenzy of killing with most hunters using dogs and some using snowmobiles. The state set a quota of 119 wolves for hunters obtaining permits and 81 for Native American tribes. The tribes chose not to use theirs — but the other hunters vastly exceeded their limit, liquidating at least 216 and prompting the DNR to stop the hunt in less than three days instead of the seven originally planned.
Adrian Treves, an environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and founder of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab, estimates that another 115 were likely killed by poachers. That would mean a third of the state’s wolves were wiped out in under 60 hours. “There’s a very real risk that we are jeopardizing the stability of our wolf population across the state,”he said in an interview on Wisconsin Public Radio.
Those defending the hunt insist that wolves are a menace to livestock and therefore must be kept to a minimum. But there were only 86 instances of such wolf predation last year in Wisconsin — a minuscule number in a state with 3.45 million beef cattle, 75,000 sheep, 72,000 goats and 179,000 horses. The owners of livestock killed by wolves are entitled to compensation from the state, which last year paid out $1.8 million.
Proud hunters used social media to post photos of wolf carcasses piled up like firewood. But they clearly have shot themselves in the foot. The Biden administration was already considering whether to restore the gray wolf’s federal protection from hunting. The Wisconsin hunt makes a powerful argument to do just that.


Hunters in Wisconsin have been waiting seven years to target gray wolves, and they made the most of what ended up being a shortened, three-day hunting season.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reported that non-Native American hunters took home 216 wolves, 97 more than the DNR had allotted to be harvested during this hunt.
Hunters didn’t break any rules. When 82 wolves were killed in the first two days after opening, the DNR immediately closed what should have been a week-long season. But they allowed hunters a 24-hour grace period to learn about the sudden season closure. In that time, hunters killed another 133 wolves.
“It’s easy at this point in the game to say, yeah, maybe we should have closed it a little bit sooner,” said DNR Wildlife Management Director Eric Lobner at a Thursday news conference. “There were so many unknowns about how the season was going to play out… How far we went over goal was not necessarily our objective.”
After wolves were removed from the endangered species list by the Trump administration, the Wisconsin DNR announced it would schedule a hunt for November 2021. The hunt was moved up to February because Republican lawmakers feared the Biden administration would try to reverse Trump’s order, according to the Associated Press.
A hunter advocacy group called Hunter Nation sued the Wisconsin DNR this month and sought an order to start the season immediately. A judge agreed, and the DNR was forced to announce a February hunting season.
Animal-rights groups have opposed the move.
“Trophy hunters wasted no time in pushing for this wolf hunt in the middle of the wolf breeding season, against the advice of state experts, and without consultation with regional tribes,” Collette Adkins of the Center for Biological Diversity told the AP. “We will continue our fight to stop the hunt.”
Hunters targeted wolves using a variety of methods, but 90 percent of the successful hunters used dogs to track and chase wolves. A fresh snowfall also helped hunters locate wolf packs.

SEE ALSO: Oklahoma State Legislator Proposes Official Bigfoot Hunting Season
The DNR received 27,151 applications but only issued 2,380 permits.
Even though hunters overshot the DNR’s allotment, it’s unlikely this season’s take will have a population-level effect. There are about 1,000 wolves in the state right now, but the DNR’s population goal is only 350, according to a separate story by the AP.
Lobner called Wisconsin wolves “very robust,” and assured residents that the population could sustain between 200 and 220 deaths and remain stable.
“The Wisconsin DNR has successfully managed gray wolves for decades and will continue to do so in accordance with the laws of our state and the best science available,” the department writes on its website.
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