Let a Deer Walk Program
Whitetail Deer
I just heard about this idea. Is it popular in Wyoming?
So what did you hear about it??
Yes, it was quite popular with residents, not so many NRs turned in their tags. They were going to check and make sure no one got duplicates after the turn in.
Stupid. It is nothing more than a feel good emotional response. Seriously why would we incentivize the taking of opportunity from others?
Why would we want people to go get a ton of tags they have no intention of hunting? For some those tags represented much needed meat, for others it may have been the last family hunt they had.
This is dumb program and a waste of time and effort. I know several people who had their wives go get extra tags just to turn in. Tags they never had any intention of getting the first place. Then not to mention now we are likely going to see a nice spike in reissue and reprint tags.
Oh and lets not forget the great idea this just gave the anti hunters.
No duplicate tags, read the rules. Most were general deer tags, not taking anything away from anyone. Looks to me it saved about 1500 deer from getting shot, more for next year. The draw was set up after the license draw I believe, seems to me only leftovers and general tags could taken from anyone that really wanted to hunt. They should have applied for those licenses in the draw.
Antis been applying for hard to get tags for a while, not a new idea. Nothing stopping meat hunters from getting a general tag and hunting is there?
How do you prove that none of the 1500 tags were not duplicated? But there were also a bunch of others tags as well. Again it is stupid idea. Why not just have people go hunt their asses off and then not shoot an animal? again just think about what this will create for anti hunters to incentivize the taking of opportunity.
It did not save any deer at all. I stand by my comment. A stupid plan that wil do nothing at all...
In most states game animals are managed to population objectives. Not utilizing tags generally means more will be issued in the future. Does this program really have much of an impact long term ?
You won't see anyone in Maryland or Delaware promoting letting a deer walk. The state and farmers want more killed.
WYOelker looks to me like a bunch of companies and people did something on their own dime to help. Besides criticizing them what did you do?
I also think that it is a great program to help the deer recover after a brutal winter.
I've heard of a lot of reports of antis putting in for draws so they could burn the tag, but never actually seen any evidence of it happening on a wide-spread basis other than some reports of it happening during the WY grizz draw.
Here's how rumors start: Person A gets frustrated he didn't draw anything and says to Person B: "I wonder if anti's are applying in the draws to burn tags." Person B then says to Person C: "Person A thinks that antis are gumming up the draw system and burning tags intentionally." Person C says, "well, Person A does hunt a lot and has a cousin that's a warden. And I didn't draw anything this year, so that makes sense. Person C then says to Person D: "I heard from a reliable source that anti's are drawing tags intentionally to burn them." And so on and so on. By the time it gets to Person M, there's reports of kale-eating hippies sitting around a camp fire throwing tags in the flames in some pot-fueled witch's rite.
I wouldn't doubt if it's happening on a limited basis, but some states have mandatory check in for animals and some states post real hard data on success rates which make widespread practice of tag-burning highly unlikely.
I burn about $1500/yr on just applications/hunting licenses and that doesn't even figure in any out-of-state tags I might purchase. I wouldn't doubt if there's a few do-gooders out there who do it, but I just haven't seen any evidence of it happening on a wide-spread basis.
No one here likes an antihunter and we're all frustrated we can't draw more tags, but everyone likes to blame a boogeyman.
Hell, I should be president of the Let a Buck Walk Club. I’ve been letting them walk for years, some of them intentionally…….
Any conservation minded hunter would not hunt Wyoming this year after the terrible winter they've had. If I had a Wyoming tag, I would not hunt this year.
Was it really that bad? Did 80-90% of the deer actually die? It seems that if that many of them could die in one year that there wouldn't be deer in the first place.
Isn't the job of state game departments to adjust tag allocations if the winter deer kill is that bad? I know these state departments don't or can't react quick enough some times and of course as others have mentioned the revenue disappears if they cut tags. So this program are citizens trying to take matters into their own hands to give incentives to help the herd. Kind of policing their own I guess. Sounds like a tough hunt if 80% of the adults and all fawns from last year are gone.
