Mandatory Harvest Reporting?
Colorado
The other shed thread got derailed so let’s discuss Mandatory Reporting here...
Should Colorado implement mandatory harvest reporting?
Pros?
Cons?
Yes. It will give better numbers on harvest success percentages, as I feel a lot of them are over inflated. I would also like to see it go the New Mexico route where if you don't submit you can't apply the following year. I can't really think of a con
I believe it will be a good thing to actually see the public vs. private data.
I think they should make harvest reporting mandatory as long as they make draw results available sooner :) .... a little give and take
We have to register our deer in Minnesota and can do it by cell phone right from camp. No big deal. Gives them exact harvest ( legal ones) and they can use the stats for whatever they want.
Absolutely in favor of mandatory testing. And, like mentioned in the other thread, CO should require it like NM or a person can’t apply the following year.
Ha, I wish they will use it as an excuse to take longer
Orion, I think you're right.. They'll probably have updated 'Alerts' on the draw results page that say something like "The draw results for 2018 Big Game draw have been delayed due to 10 hunters not reporting last years harvest survey. As soon as these numbers are in, the draw will be completed"
What are the reporting perimeters? Just phone it in, report it online, have it signed off?
New mexico is all on line you log in to your account and there is a tab for harvest reporting. It asks if you were successful, how many days you hunted, and then it has a scaled question about your experience from 0 to 5. It literally takes maybe a minute. Colorado used to call back in the 90s and early 2000s now they send an email to complete a survey but they don't go to all tag holders and I haven't gotten one for deer or elk in over 5 years.
If I thought they honestly gave a crap about how crowded my experience was, I'd feel guilty for not responding to their emails.
Yes! It would give the CPW accurate harvest data. Can’t really think of a “con”.
The CPW is a government entity you give them a crystal ball and a time machine they still could could not effectively do their jobs.
With that said I do it in Oklahoma and it takes about 2 minutes.
Nope, not interested in more hoops to jump through to go hunting.
Agreed. How could they enforce accuracy? Begin with the assumption that everyone would be truthful about when & where they hunted, and what they did or didn't harvest?
As far as the assumption that everyone would be truthful should be similar to the truthfulness of people tagging their kills. You would be required to do it with in a giving period of time or if not face a fine.
I am not sure how that helps a lot with pin pointing herd numbers. Because it does nothing to answer question of winter kill or fawn survival rates. I guess if CPW knows they want X number of elk killed in a unit to reach what they picked as herd objective. You can take number they want killed divided by historic success percentage and it would give them a better idea of number of tags to issue.
Well, they don't use harvest reports to set tag numbers so what would be the point of mandatory reporting? The survey method is inherently inaccurate but is so every year. So, statistically it is a viable tool.
Mandatory checking could throw the stats out of whack for three or four years before a new baseline is established.
The spring counts are more useful than harvest reports.
Have you seen the spring and winter counts? They fly the same areas no matter if it was a big winter or mild winter. They count whatever deer or elk they see in that hour and then put it into some crazy algorithm similar to the sheep draw and come up with a total number of elk for the unit.
I don't see how anything inherently inaccurate can be proven to be viable. Thats like saying I can't hit shit with my bow, but it shoots an arrow every time I release the string!
Mandatory checking wouldn't throw anything out of whack if it used solely for observation purposes. I think the more accurate information the better for the herd objectives, but I can see how the information could sway the crowd. As it stands most everyone knows how terrible CO's data collection is so they don't necessarily hang their hat on the harvest stats. At the same time if mandatory reports show Glunks otc unit w/ higher than avg success you can bet he'll have company come next fall.
How about mandatory harvest report on LE tags only?? This day and age there shouldn't be any question about validity of data, but here we are!.
My low point elk draw unit had an artificial surge in the published archery success rate for two straight years before dropping back down to 7% where it actually is and always has been. But that 22% reported success rate put it near the top of the CO archery units, which then resulted in a whole bunch of people burning points for a few years, making it tougher to draw. That was in 2013-14 and some people are still wasting as many as 19 points to hunt one of the toughest units in the state.
So mandatory reporting would help me.
