Bowsite.com

From article:

The bill currently heading to the Democrat-controlled House allows Parks and Wildlife to raise both resident and non-resident fees for licenses. It sets a yearly cap on increases to daily park passes at $1 and annual park passes at $10. Resident annual fishing licenses would go to $33 from $25 and out-of-staters would pay $95, up from $55. A senior fishing license would increase to $8 from free.

The cost of an elk tag climbs to $53 from $45. Out-of-state elk tags — which account for more than half of the agency’s total fishing and hunting license revenue — would jump to $660 from $450.

Critically, all license prices would be tied to the Consumer Price Index, allowing for annual, incremental increases instead of changes through once-a-decade legislation.

The state wildlife department that makes the most off hunters of any state now will make even more.

So that they can spend even more.

What will they be doing to improve hunting in this state?

Still gotta say, they really did a bang up job with their advertising campaign. Seems from the ads that hunters are not paying their fair share and the wildlife viewers are paying more than everyone.

Sad. Continued lack of accountability for CPW.

I will gladly pay much more to hunt in CO if the state government that is imposing these higher fees/tax on me can show that they are using to improve hunting opportunity in CO or at very least need to keep status quo. But to a large extent I read this as we have to best opportunity to raise the most money off of hunters because they will pay. Then using money for things that the only relationship to hunting is they are both outdoors.

So at $661, NR elk hunting here is still a bargain.

Colorado already hits hunters the hardest and will be upping the prices on hunters yet again.

The biggest cost issues that they claim to have are Fish Hatchery maintenance and Dam repairs. Hmmm, lets see, hunter's license fees increase across the board to pay for fishing issues and water storage issues...

Any mention of improving quality for hunting? Reduction of hunter crowding? Improving game animal numbers?

Makes what kind of sense?

"... Truitt said the agency will soon begin an intensive survey of Colorado’s outdoor users as part of an outreach effort to include more outdoor users in discussions on how to protect and preserve Colorado’s wildlands and wildlife.

“We really want to know the pulse out there. As an agency it’s critical for us to talk to all Coloradans. What do they see as good opportunities and good options for managing the state’s resources into the future,” she said."

Not sure what CPW paid for that "survey" that says Wildlife Viewing brings in more than twice what hunting brings in when Wildlife Viewing pays exactly $0.00 to the CPW budget. Hell, then it shows that state parks and fishing are also worth more than hunting when the real numbers are exactly the opposite.

Fishing license sales are about 1/3 of hunting license revenue in Colorado and yet, fishing will only have an $8 increase in the one fishing license that they purchase. Every hunting license will increase by $8 or more with sheep, goat, and moose increasing substantial amounts.

Would really like to see limits on percentages of NR's in the OTC units that would certainly help the crowding issues and make for better hunting. Seems like a very reasonable request if CPW wants to raise our resident license fees.

They will already be making and saving a lot more money off of hunters with the new application system.

To me, increased quality is mostly about reducing hunter crowding. So are you ready to lobby for restrictions on having kids? Anything else is just a band-aid.

From page 14:

With respect to licenses which THAT are issued in limited numbers for the taking of game wildlife, the division is authorized to MAY collect from each RESIDENT license applicant a nonrefundable processing fee not to exceed (three was marked out and changed to TEN) TEN dollars AND FROM EACH NONRESIDENT LICENSE APPLICANT A NONREFUNDABLE PROCESSING FEE NOT TO EXCEED TWENTY DOLLARS, WHICH FEES THE COMMISSION SHALL ESTABLISH BY RULE.

Unfortunately, Colorado resident hunters will be left holding the bag and CPW will not change their management to make any improvements for the resident hunter.

CPW will mis-manage their way into further debt, even though they are one of the best funded wildlife organizations in the country, and we will end up covering their ineptitude.

I would expect when this passes you will see access improvements on both STL , private, and landlocked public. In fact, it is already happening, in the SE region Dan Prenzlow offered up 22 properties for deer totaling 33,000 acres last year.

Expect the CBA to work with the commission in favor of caps for applications fees.

In terms of improving quality, that is a discussion you should take up with the CBA board. Curious to know how you would propose that get done for the upcoming season structure. I was going to lobby for more tags in 49 since the DAU plan is under review, but archery success rates are at 30%! Being selfish ain't gonna work.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions so I will lodge mine. Bitching and moaning isn't very productive or fruitful. Treeline - Build a bridge and get over what you can't control because your not helping right now. To further state my opinion, I feel like the CBA has terrific working relationships with CPW and every other conservation org in the state. 13 orgs joined together this year to postpone indefinitely the grand slam raffle bill this year, led by CBA

With all do respect I think your out of line for specifically calling out Treeline as "Bitching and moaning". IMO he stated his opinion and whether you agree or disagree with him, his opinion has valid points. Nothing wrong with posting up your thoughts on open internet forum. Root of most problems regarding government agencies is their inefficiencies and waste of tax payers dollars. Not sure how to address that point and keep " terrific working relationships with CPW " But food for thought.

What I hope doesn't happen is all bowhunters get lumped into a negative category because of comments on bowsite from a vocal few.

This bill flew through the conservative republican controlled finance committee with NO ONE voting against it, and I did not hear of anyone testifying against it. Not only was the number two Senate republican Jerry Sonnenberg in favor of it, he championed it amongst his republican peers. Jerry is considered very conservative by most. Senate republicans grilled CPW about expenditures.

Personally, I wish the fee increase would have been slightly higher, or offered an optional fee for preference point sales while keeping the same $3 application fee as we have today. That would have provided more consumer choice. It doesn't matter now, choices were made by others, and looking back does no good.

Planning to try again to talk sensibly, but we are probably already screwed on this deal.

I wonder how many more damns we have than other states?

John,

Good talking with you at the CBA. Thank you and the CPW representatives for coming down and spending time with us at the Banquet.

I have been very upset with the increases in fees and the misdirected media that CPW has been putting out with respect to where their money comes from and where it is spent. The statement that they continue to tout at every Sportsman’s Round Table, Commissioner’s Meeting and even in the Bills from last year and this year has continued to tout the following statement (copied from the latest bill):

Section 2, (1), (b) - “Outdoor recreation significantly impacts Colorado’s economy, including annual economic benefits of $919 million from hunting, $1.9 billion from fishing, $2.3 billion from wildlife viewing, and $1 billion from state park visitors”

This information is very misleading with respect to where CPW’s funding comes from and is extremely prejudiced against hunting. I do not know the source, but it is very obviously slanted information and does not account for significant expenditures by hunters and over accounts for expenditures for the other categories. Why has CPW continued to tout this statement at every meeting and in every piece of legislation? It should cause great concern from any resident hunter, particularly when the facts are brought to light.

The US Fish and Wildlife tracks expenditures for hunting and fishing licenses for every state in the USA. Hunting information can be found at: https://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/subpages/licenseinfo/hunting.htm, and fishing information can be found at: https://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/subpages/licenseinfo/Fishing.htm.

• This data indicates that Colorado Parks and Wildlife received approximately $54.7 million from hunting and $18.2 million from fishing license sales in 2017. Hunting delivers over 3 times the revenue as fishing to CPW.

• I dug around in the budget information that I could find online to find the amount of revenue for State Parks and I believe that number to be approximately $13 million to CPW in 2017. Hunting license revenue delivers over 4 times that of State Parks to CPW.

• “Wildlife Watching” does not generate any revenue to CPW. Hunting contributes 100% more to CPW than “Wildlife Watching”

• Going back through historical data, Colorado consistently generates the highest hunting license revenue of any state in the USA over many years.

• Colorado generates more hunting license revenue than any other two western states combined. This is due to the large number of OTC elk licenses that are sold each year to about a 50/50 split of non-resident and resident hunters. Most other western states limit non-residents to a far lower percentage of the available tags – typically 10% maximum.

Both the bill from 2017 and SB 18-143 focused the majority of the fee increases in fees on resident hunting licenses and applications. The increases are across the board for each license and application in the drawings. In Colorado, we have to purchase individual licenses for every species as well as small game so hunters will be paying a significant amount more across the board than fishermen or State Parks users.

The big ticket budget shortfalls stated by CPW and specifically listed in the bill under Section 2 are:

VI. Identify and plan a new Colorado State Park (no cost listed, but expect to be significant)

VII. $44.76 million for maintenance and repair for 11 dams owned and operated by the division (why, in Colorado where water rights are worth more than gold, are the water rights not paying their way?)

VIII. Increasing the number of fish stocked in Colorado to more than 90 million (no cost listed, have heard $25 million +. Why does CPW continue to allow high limits on hatchery raised fish and spend large amounts to kill game fish that do not need hatcheries?)

IX. Reducing $26 million large capital construction and maintenance backlog by 50% (not sure what these are related to – assume general CPW costs)

Which of these items are directly related to improvement of hunting in Colorado? Yet the majority of the cost increases are going to fall on the backs of the resident hunters.

The bill’s direct hunting related items under Section 2 are:

I. Increasing the number of hunters and anglers in Colorado (this improves hunting how? We already have significant overcrowding issues in OTC units. Why are resident hunters expected to deal with more hunter crowding?)

III. Recruiting and retaining qualified employees (understandable to help manage our wildlife resources)

IV. Supporting access programs on public and private lands (what is the goal here? How much will hunters benefit? Will access be provided to all State Trust Lands as in the vast majority of other western states?)

V. Increasing and improving the states big game populations through investments in habitat and conservation (what is the goal? With payments to private property owners, will we get public access? That has not been the case on most of these payments for conservation to private landowners to date.)

If you boil down all the language in the bill to very simple terms, resident hunters will be paying more to CPW for less. We will be covering the costs of items not related to improving the quality of hunting in this state with no goals nor quantification of any improvements to hunting. I actually find it hard to believe that any resident hunter or group representing resident hunters would agree to this.

The file that I attached is a comparison against other states for resident hunting license fees based on the current license fee structure versus last year’s resident license fees across 10 western states. The comparison looks at a combination hunting/fishing, elk, deer and antelope tags to get an idea of the differences in tag prices for multiple species. There are several very interesting data points that come from this comparison:

1. Of the states compared, Montana generates the second overall amount of hunting license revenue behind Colorado at $30.4 million. A Montana Resident Sportsman’s license includes: fishing, small game, access to all STL, conservation stamp, general deer, and general elk for $70.00. If bear is added, the cost is $85.00. Montana’s seasons are much longer than Colorado’s, they regulate the numbers of non-residents to much lower percentages, and you can hunt and fish on all State Trust Lands. The quality of hunting is better from a hunter crowding and animal quality perspective.

2. The states that have higher priced licenses have very limited numbers of big game and very high trophy quality for at least one or two of those species. There are very few licenses sold for each of the species in those states so they have to increase the prices to account for the lower quantities of animals. Very understandable from that perspective. I guarantee if you go to Arizona and ask hunters if they want to give up the elk quality that they have to be able to get a license every year, they will not support it at all. Arizona hunters can draw lower quality elk hunts on about a 3 year cycle with a higher probability of shooting a 350” bull than in the very best units of Colorado.

It is obvious that this bill is going to pass. I have been very frustrated trying to get some of these points across to the representatives from the various organizations that I am a member of, at Sportsman’s Round Table Meetings and to the Wildlife Commissioners. Resident hunters have to put up with a high percentage of non-residents in the field, very short and overlapping season structures, significant overcrowding, and lower animal quality. I do not see this bill doing anything to address any of these resident hunter issues with anything concrete.

We, as Colorado resident hunters, will be taking on an ever larger percentage of the burden for ever decreasing quality. Is this fair?

Unfortunately, I cannot commit the resources to be at every meeting. That is the case with the majority of resident hunters as we cannot afford take off the time from work and foot the bills for travel around the state to all the meetings like outfitters, CPW representatives, Wildlife Commissioners, and even large landowners. We have to rely on the organizations that we belong to and the members of the Wildlife Commission to make good decisions on our behalf. Unfortunately, I feel that the slanted media approach that has been used by CPW for the last several years has seriously affected the judgement of the people that should be working for the resident hunters.

As director of the Colorado Wildlife Commission, please keep these facts and issues in the forefront of your decision making processes.

Thank you, Tavis Rogers

Dear Mr. Rogers,

Your message was forwarded to me by the Commission for a response. W e appreciate your feedback on the bill and your engagement with the legislative process.

In response to your first set of questions/comments, the information on the value of economic benefits from hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing comes from an analysis conducted by Southwick Associates in 2013-2014, as part of the Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) . (Please see p. 6 of the attached document for more details.) As described in the report, these figures are an estimate of the total effects of spending by each of these groups on the statewide economy.

The information on the value of economic benefits from state park visitors comes from an analysis conducted by Corona Research in 2008-2009, which determined the amount of local spending by visitors to state parks. To estimate the total effects of this spending on the statewide economy, an industry-standard economic multiplier was used.

To be clear, these figures do not reflect the amount of funding CPW receives from each of these groups, but instead the value of the economic benefits that result from these activities statewide.

The information you referred to on the USFWS website is for the calculation year 2017, which does not correspond directly to our budgetary fiscal year. From our most recent financial report to the Commission (attached) you will find that in FY 16-17, big game hunting licenses generated about $58.2 million in revenue, fishing licenses generated about $16 million in revenue, other types of licenses (combination licenses, small game, etc.), fees and stamps generated $18.5 million. Park passes and camping fees generated about $28.8 million and registration fees generated around $9.4 million in revenue. Also, please remember, as per federal and state law, the parks and wildlife budgets are kept separate. This means that parks revenue can only be used on parks -related expenditures and wildlife revenue can only be used on wildlife -related expenditures .

In addition to the goals you mentioned, collaborating with stakeholders to develop strategies to engage all outdoor recreationists, including hikers, bikers, climbers and wildlife watchers, in funding wildlife management and state parks is one of the goals CPW outlined achieving by 2025. Towards that end, CPW is funding a study of the feasibility of various alternative funding options and stakeholders’ perspectives on those options. We anticipate completing the study in the fall of 2018 and will then work with partners to explore potential next steps.

Sincerely, Krista Heiner

Basically, CPW has steamrolled this bill placing a significant additional burden on hunters for a majority of costs due to items not related to hunting.

With the slanted media, it appears that they are just raising fees on hunting to account for not raising rates on hunters for such a long time and they really need to raise the costs on hunters to get them to pay their "fair share".

Interestingly, my numbers were off based on her response. If you add in the costs for small game licenses and stamps (mostly hunting related) of $18.5M to the $58.2M that she claims from the CPW budget, Hunters provide $76.7M to CPW.

That is closer to 5X the revenue to CPW by $16M for fishing.

Parks Passes and Camping fees at $28.8M are 2.6X less than hunting.

With Colorado's system of having to pay for each license for each species you hunt and tacking on increases to each of those, hunters will absolutely bear the largest percentage of the increases versus the other sources of revenue to CPW.

CPW has done an absolutely wonderful job of shoving this one down the throats of all the resident hunters of Colorado.

Everybody sure seemed to be happy about it.

Guess I need to just crawl off the bus and quit trying.

Obviously.

Hunting still brings in 5 times what fishing does prior to the rate increases.