I asked CPW what increases would be on non resident license fees and they won't tell me. Has anyone seen any info on that?
I haven't decided whether to support it yet. Our budget is much higher than similar western states. I get that we have a lot more people, but that should result in more revenue that offsets the increased cost of servicing more users.
There are a lot of inferences off of the USFW table that can be made with respect to how much Colorado is making off of hunting as well as the resident/nonresident split as compared to the other western states.
CPW is a government entity and, as such, will spend at least as much (and most likely more) than we will allow them - then come back begging for more.
What I have not seen at Sportsmen's Roundtables or Wildlife Commission Meetings is anyone pushing back on CPW to demand accountability for how and why they are overspending.
At a recent meeting in Steamboat when I brought up that Colorado sportsmen would gladly pay for additional quality, less crowding and access - Mr. Romatzke basically over ran me and said all I was interested in was trophies and that was not what Colorado was going to manage for. After he stopped, I told him that no, what I was talking about was being able to go out in the woods without being overwhelmed by the hordes of non-residents.
Nonresident big game license sales = 109,712 == 38 million in revenue for the CPW
Based on this, I doubt that there will be less non resident license sales in the future ie, less non resident hunters, I doubt this also.
Less non resident hunters???? Less revenue? Who will make up the difference? RESIDENTS? I doubt that will happen.
The majority of Colorado elk hunters do not want a state wide draw for elk tags, ie, limiting the number of hunters.
In 1988 there were 14,600 resident and non resident elk bow hunters.(less than 200,000 elk.) Today, nearly 40,000 bow hunters (265,000 elk) The year, 2000, the elk population was estimated at 320,000 but have now been reduce to the current LTO (objective) .
So how many bow hunters need to be reduced in numbers to satisfy one "quality" of the hunt? 10%, 50%?? Personally, I like to elk hunt ever year and not every 3-4 years.
I will support the Fee Bill as I have researched, read, attended meetings, and can see the need for the long term stability of the CPW and the big game populations, habitat, and programs they administer.
The point that I had attempted to make was that CPW is most likely THE BEST FUNDED GAME AND FISH ORGANIZATION IN NORTH AMERICA.
Why are they asking for more money from the resident hunters?
Particularly when the resident hunters have to deal with larger and ever increasing numbers of non-residents than any other western state and less access to our public lands.
Wyoming residents can buy OTC licenses for deer and elk General Units as well as put in for the limited draw areas. Non-residents are limited for those same General units.
The prices of our resident hunting tags are already high when compared to other western states. Especially when you compare the quality of our resident tags versus other states that cost more.
The items that they list as being priority for costs (dams, hatcheries, and capital improvement projects) are not related to hunting or wildlife. However, the brunt of the cost increases to license fees will be borne by hunters (increased application fees, increase on EACH license for each species, etc). Since a large portion of the costs are with respect to fishing issues, why not raise fishing license prices more to account for those costs?
The dam issue is really disturbing as, if CPW owns the water rights, they can be leased to provide long term income that can more than account for the required maintenance costs. If CPW does not own the water rights, then it is the water rights owner that has the responsibility for any maintenance and repairs. Water rights in this state are extremely valuable and CPW should be making a lot of money if they manage them effectively. This issue should provide a reduction in cost to our license fees rather than an increase.
CPW has not provided any solid goals in this bill for increasing access nor hunting quality that they can be held accountable for. They have not stated any goals for the number of additional acres that they will open up to hunting access.
There is also no stated goal for recovery of game populations. Our mule deer numbers are still far below historic highs (significantly lower in some areas) yet they continue to sell high numbers of licenses in areas that need time to recover.
This bill will put more of a burden on resident hunters and will not provide any improvements to the system.
Wyoming residents pay:
$57 for elk tags
$42 for deer tags
Colorado residents pay:
$49 for elk
$34 for deer
Dunno... Thats not high compared to Wyoming
I would also say that Wyoming residents have better quality hunting than we do. Less crowding, longer seasons (months!), ability to hunt archery then rifle on the same tag... Kind of like having two for one versus Colorado, wouldn't you say?
Additionally, the numbers of Wyoming residents buying hunting licenses is much lower.
Based on your price for tags versus what we get, our tags should be about $28 for elk and $21 for deer - just based on amount of time we can hunt.
Subtract off for the crowding and access to STL, and that is probably still too high...
Just trying to point out issues with raising resident fees and stand up for all of the resident hunters of Colorado because it seems no one else will...
Although, it should...
When one compares CO R fees to other states, please include length of seasons too.
I went over this on the Senate Bill 18-143 thread:
In Montana you get your Sportsman's license for $85 that allows you to fish and hunt small game, deer, elk, and bear. Throw in an antelope tag for another $19. Ain't bad! Then you get to bowhunt the General units and if you don't get your critters, you can hunt rifle seasons too! Oh, and in a number of units you can get extra doe tags cheap :)
Hell, that is better than Wyoming!
Why is Colorado so set on raising our resident hunting fees when they are taking in more revenue than any other state?
What are/have they been wasting all that money on?
Sounds like their response is "because we can". And, they are not offering us as hunters any improvement.
Why would any hunter be for this bill?
Not so sure about it being a more desirable place to live than Montana, Wyoming, or Alaska but that is a personal call.
I agree 100% that fishing licenses should pay for fishing programs.
Parks & Recreation should be fee structured so that parks, mountain bikes, hikers, wildlife watchers, etc cover the costs associated with those components and projects.
Additionally, water rights income can most certainly offset/cover the costs of any maintenance required for storage and delivery of those water rights.
Take a quick look on CPW's website. The amount of stuff that they advertise that has NO FUNDING by the participants is fairly significant - biking, mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, wildlife watching... It is obvious that they are spending money in these areas - at a minimum for advertisement.
WHY?
Colorado hunters are being hoodwinked into believing that we must raise our license fees to even maintain the short, over-crowded seasons that we currently have (and expect to have more over-crowding every year) in order to cover significant expenditures that will provide no benefit to us - some of which will be in direct opposition to our sport and values.
Wow, CPW has done a number on us!
Guess we should just smile and say "Thank you, Sir, may I have another"!
So Tavis, when are you moving?
Montana - about 147,000 square miles with about 1 million people. Colorado - about 104,200 square miles with 5.5 million people.
Generally speaking, I also prefer less populated areas. I spent the last few summers traveling up north. The farther north we go, the fewer people we see, and the better we like it. But the reality is, there are many more things to consider when deciding on where to live, and Colorado is hard to beat. Although it was much more desirable 46 years ago when I first moved here.
RogBow's Link
I expect costs will rise. I'm just not convinced the CPW can't accomplish it's duties with a $212 million budget.
A resident hunter is paying to access his own wildlife resource. There are many other people and businesses that benefit and profit from wildlife but pay nothing into the CPW cash register.
But people here don't want to hear about other States and what residents pay and get for their money, they just want to pay more for nothing in return, cause by golly I can buy an OTC bull tag with a short low success rate crowded season! If this fee bill passes, I'm betting we'll see a few fishing access easements bought and zero to little big game hunting access gained.
I wish all these people and groups that are so excited to pay more would have been as equally excited to speak up to the legislature to stop the additional tags given to the landowner vouchers a few years ago.
Treeline's Link
Hunting license sales - $60M
Fishing license sales - $20M
I can not pull the direct revenue from Parks and other licensing but they claim a total of $114M for revenue from the three sources so simple math puts park income at $34M - Could be as high as $40M.
There is also approximately $40M from State Loto Funds.
The below statement is on about everything that the CPW has been pushing for the last three years to try and get a fee increase:
"Hunting contributes $919 million in total economic impact to Colorado, fishing contributes $1.9 billion and wildlife viewing adds an additional $2.3 billion. Colorado state parks contribute $1 billion to Colorado’s economy, attracting more than 12 million visitors each year."
There is something really, really messed up down there at CPW guys! Instead of focusing up front with their revenue sources and issues, they make it look like hunters are not paying their way!
This is a very effective media tool that has effectively brainwashed the masses - sportsmen's organizations that represent us. These sportsmen's organizations were all for last years massive rate hikes and will do the same for this one if we let them.
Any rate hikes need to be focused on fishing and parks.
Unless we make a stand to improve hunting season structures, access, and reduce hunting pressure it will absolutely get worse even with the rate hikes.
In a classic negotiation move, CPW has pushed all of the sportsman's organizations into a corner with this year's concept.
Please, please try to get the word out to all of our sportsmen's organizations - particularly those that support hunting - that this is totally WRONG-THINK!
Hunters in Colorado are already footing the majority of the bills and these increases on resident hunting are not acceptable, given that there are no goals by CPW to do anything to improve the quality of our hunting.
Grasshopper's Link
There seems to be a great deal of complaint lodging, comparisons of how we as a state are not competitive with other states and I can't necessarily disagree with any of it. We aren't competitive. Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel, and guys feel anger and other negativity. If I could get buy in from my wife, find a way to earn a living and the weather wasn't so freaking cold - I would be all over Montana living and a 6 week elk season with a month of rifle afterwards. Hunted there half a dozen times, along with Wyoming - it is worth it! This year, I expect to draw Wyoming elk at a cost of $1335 dollars.
Bottom line for me is do you want the same or worse, at the same cost or do you want more with a slightly lighter wallet? I pay $45 a month so my daughter can take piano lessons. I'd rather buy her a fishing license, save the money and do something together.
Those are soley my own opinions.
ZachinCO's Link
Not sure if what I linked it what you're referring to? I haven't gone through what I linked in detail yet, so I can't speak to any of their numbers.
That only shows their budget and expenditures, it does not show their revenue.
The issue here is that CPW makes the majority of it's revenue off of hunting license sales already.
They continuously advertise bogus "Annual Impact to Colorado" expenditures that are in no way related to CPW income and paint a picture that hunter dollars are lower than wildlife watching, parks, or fishing. This is blatantly false, based on the actual revenue figures. The deficits that are being presented are primarily directed at fishing and water rights issues.
There is no mention of plans to improve resident hunting.
And resident hunters are for raising fees on all applications and licenses for resident hunters?
Not sure there is any help for you guys. At all.
Resident hunters should be outraged at increased fees for ever shrinking opportunity.
Without a concerted push to increase resident hunter's opportunities by hunting organizations in this state - we will continue to bear the brunt of future cost increases as well as have significantly reduced opportunities.
This^
Bothered by fee increases? Reallocate your budget. Buy two less 6-packs of good beer per year, that will cover the difference in your deer and elk tags. Did you draw a moose, sheep, or goat tag? Cut your DirecTV subscription by one package level for the year, that will cover it. The bottom line in the long run, Treeline, is that NOTHING is ever going to get cheaper, or even stay the same.
You and I seem to be the only ones that can see it now.
The CBA board voted on a position for the bill yesterday, that will most likely be unique among conservation organizations. We did have some direct member feedback in opposition of the CPI increases. Personally, I didn't disagree with the commentary, and the board appreciated the input. That said, our survey result suggested majority support for CPI increases.
Our next step is to have a strategic discussion with our lobbyist as to how we can garner support from other organization, and position it for success in the legislative sausage grinder process. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more detail
Your license dollars at work:)
Resident hunters and anglers in this state really need to make a stand to improve quality.
Especially hunters! I would be OK if I only had to pay $8 one time, but the way this is set up, I will pay $64 extra plus higher application fees while fishermen and parks users only pay $8.
Parks and fishing are already significantly underpaying for their resources as can be seen by the revenue generation against the major expenditures!
CPW will save significant costs by not having to mail out refunds and will also gain additional applicants across the board by not requiring the full license fee to be submitted with the application. That alone will be a significant impact to the bottom line.
CPW is not planning anything to increase the quality of the hunting experience nor the quality of our game herds.
WHY ARE RESIDENT HUNTERS BEING TARGETED WITH HIGHER PRICES?
How do you know that?
The next 5 Year Season Structure is right around the corner and those discussions haven’t started yet
From participation in Sportsmen's Roundtables, Wildlife Commission Meetings, and other meetings this subject seems to be met with resistance by many in CPW - and even several of our Sportsman's groups that should be standing up for the resident sportsmen.
Give them the money first, I guess... Then try to get CPW and the Wildlife Commission to improve the quality of our hunting... After they spend the money from hunters on non-wildlife, non-hunting endeavors... Oh, by then, they will need more money from resident hunters to improve the quality of hunting...
Be sure to include ALL the hunting groups - archery/ML/rifle
Go ahead. Wave your magic wand. Put in place what’s perfect
Provide longer seasons for rifle hunters and get rid of the split season structure.
Get rifle hunters out of archery season.
Improve game species population estimating and reduce tag numbers/seasons when populations have dropped.
Open State Trust Lands for access by hunters and fishermen as in all the other western states.
CPW places hunters at the bottom of their list for "total economic impact to Colorado" and puts that page up 1st in every discussion about "sustainability". This is a huge marketing ploy that has brainwashed people to thinking that hunting is "not paying their share" when exactly the opposite is true.
Raise fishing license fees to cover the costs of fishing issues.
Raise the Parks fees to cover the costs of Parks.
Manage the water rights to pay for any maintenance or repairs to dams.
Don't raise fees on hunting licenses to cover fees for Parks, fishing or dams.
CPW spends a lot on non-paying areas. CPW needs to stop doing that and focus on the paying customers first.
The CPW brainwashing campaign has been very successful.
It is unfortunate that CPW continues to push a false narrative with respect to who is paying for what within their revenue stream.
It is unfortunate that we hunters will be footing the bill for the majority of the expenditures in CPW that have nothing to do with our activity.
It is an absolute shame that we, as resident hunters, do not hold CPW accountable for improving opportunity, quantity and quality of our big game and other wildlife species for the residents of Colorado.
I believe you drew an elk tag that took ~20 PPs last fall. That would mean you bought PPs and over-priced licenses for quite awhile.
Im surprised you didnt turn that tag back, as high priced and poor quality as it was.
Its difficult to swim both ends of the pool :)
What does that have to do with the issues regarding wildlife and hunting across the state? Absolutely nothing.
What does that have to do with CPW's mismanagement, misappropriation of funds, and misinformation regarding funding sources in this state to the detriment of hunting across the board?
Because you’re contributing to the very issues you’re complaining about
Re-read what I wrote above.
Resident hunters in the state of Colorado are missing a golden opportunity with the CPW to make things better.
Its obvious you have had great success over the years in Colorado. And the CPW assisted with that success for you. Do you want 'more great success' by having them make things better?
Ill let this thread wither and die with these predictions
The residents of Colorado will see a license fee increase and 'Treeline' will pay his part too, regardless of what the CPW does
I have also had great success in many other states and countries for many species. Including countries where there was absolutely no concept of conservation or regulation of hunting or fishing.
In so doing, I have seen that other state's G&F departments have better quality, opportunity, and access and treat their resident hunters with more respect than CPW.
Yes, I will pay the increased rates as will we all.
It can absolutely be far better in this state for resident hunters.
Yet again, hunters will be shouldering additional burden for issues that are not our own.
CPW shocked and netted about 200 walleye out of Stagecoach last year. Then they gave away the filets down at Rifle Gap to encourage fishermen to keep them out of Rifle and Harvey Gap reservoirs.
They have been shocking and removing pike and walleye from the lake for a while now. They spend a lot of money down the Yampa shocking and killing pike and smallmouth bass every year.
PECO, 'figuring out' these things takes years or even decades of data-gathering, then slight tweaks in the system, and followed by more data-gathering, by biologists who have a whole lot on their plate.
Mindboggling to me that the majority of the increases will hit resident hunters due to multiple $8 hits for each hunting license (small game, deer, elk, antelope, etc., etc., etc.)combined with increases in application fees when the cost issues and proposed improvements with CPW are related to fishing issues.
Hunting license direct revenue to CPW is already 3 TIMES the amount of fishing license revenue! $60M vs. $20M per year.
Hunting license sales are currently the largest generator of income to CPW. BY FAR! Yet they continuously tout that Hunting brings in less than "Wildlife Watching", State Parks, or Fishing.
CPW has no plans to do anything to improve hunting opportunity or quality for resident hunters. They actually state a goal of selling more licenses in the bill.
Truly mindboggling that resident hunters are falling for this.
You vote in favor of all those $.01 tax increases? It's only a penny.
Many years ago when they adjusted NR prices and tied them to CPI, they did not adjust the fee for NR desert bighorn (because there was not a NR desert license at that time and they didn't anticipate having one). So when we finally had a NR desert bighorn license it started out at $1200 and has been adjusted with CPI since. The proposed fee bill would bring it in line with NR RM bighorn licenses.