Alberta Lion Changes

[Brent Sinclair]

I recieved this email from F&W a couple days ago, not sure I like what this means.
I see a couple comments that are contradictory .

Nothing has been totally finalized yet, but we have gotten preliminary approval to

1) Adjust the CMA boundaries north of the Bow River. This will include adding 6 new WMUs to the CMA system, but removing WMU 216.
2) Create a fall, non-hound cougar season in the 100-500 WMUs that are outside of the CMAs. Essentially what this means is that we will have the fall non-hound season in most all areas of the province that are outside of the CMAs. The one exception is WMU 410, where we will have both seasons.
3) Allow landowners to keep cougars they kill on their own land
4) Require submission of a premolar tooth from all cougars for aging.

Much more info will be coming out on the changes in the coming months. I'm working on an information package that will be available to everyone.

About the non-hound season...from the harvest data it seems pretty apparent that the current hound season isn't achieving harvest objectives in WMUs comprised primarily of private land. Part of this may be a reluctance of hound hunters to hunt on private land, and part seems to be a reluctance to harvest females. We're hoping that the sheer number of ungulate hunters that are out on the land during the fall non-hound season will result in a higher harvest in some of these areas. We will be monitoring the results of this season closely to see how well it works.

[BLACK RHINO]

Brent. They are planning alot more then that as of the last info I had acquired. Including A "Sink, Stable, Source" separation of the current CMA's. And A revert back to the previous quota system. Also adding some WMU's either to current CMA's Or making new ones in A band across the province North of Edmonton and South of Grande Prairie. Feasibly out to the Saskatchewan border. Will see what comes of it.

Rhino.

[nait hadya]

I recieved this email from F&W a couple days ago, not sure I like what this means.
I see a couple comments that are contradictory .

Nothing has been totally finalized yet, but we have gotten preliminary approval to

1) Adjust the CMA boundaries north of the Bow River. This will include adding 6 new WMUs to the CMA system, but removing WMU 216.
2) Create a fall, non-hound cougar season in the 100-500 WMUs that are outside of the CMAs. Essentially what this means is that we will have the fall non-hound season in most all areas of the province that are outside of the CMAs. The one exception is WMU 410, where we will have both seasons.
3) Allow landowners to keep cougars they kill on their own land
4) Require submission of a premolar tooth from all cougars for aging.

Much more info will be coming out on the changes in the coming months. I'm working on an information package that will be available to everyone.

About the non-hound season...from the harvest data it seems pretty apparent that the current hound season isn't achieving harvest objectives in WMUs comprised primarily of private land. Part of this may be a reluctance of hound hunters to hunt on private land, and part seems to be a reluctance to harvest females. We're hoping that the sheer number of ungulate hunters that are out on the land during the fall non-hound season will result in a higher harvest in some of these areas. We will be monitoring the results of this season closely to see how well it works.

there might be a few of us who like to raise and train hounds,chase after them lions, take a few pictures and be happy with just that. on another board that was questioned as being "illegal" by the board "expert". yet these same,people catch that same trophy brown trout over and over and over again, and think nothing of it. if leaving that female in the tree means i can hunt again next weekend,well that is probably what i'm gonna do. if they allowed hounders more options in the pursuit of lion(s), it might help.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

Brent this doesn't sound good for you Alberta boys. This is what happens when your trophy deer become a high dollar item. I don't see anything good coming of this proposal.
Good luck, Doug

[BLACK RHINO]

Nait???? What the heck are you talkin about?? Think you responded to A different thread. Chilcotin.. On the surface it is A very bad thing. But new head man in SRD so he has his vision and is hell bent on puttin his stamp on it. Some of it ain't all bad. I have no problems with landowners bein able to keep the cat that is tryin to eat their dogs, or llama's. If they get it shot and recovered then fine by me. The revert to the previous quota system.... Well that will be A test of the houndsmen in the province as to how well they manage themselves.. The "Source, Stable, Sink" quota planning...... Well they have been less then forthcoming as to quota's and the exact boundary changes. So can't offer A real opinion on it yet. But same thing on the surface of the theory it is not A good thing. Time will tell.

Rhino.

[nait hadya]

Nait. What the heck are you talkin about. Tink you responded to a different thread

"part seems to be a reluctance to harvest females". This reluctance seems to be wide spread in the houndsmen world, as another post clearly shows. now,if they gave us residents a pursuit season after we clipped a tag on that fringe area female lion,well heck,that would be wildlife management in action! eh? suffice to say there ain't no money in it and the A team would probably not support it,widening the rift between the houndsmen here in Alberta. no worries, im just ramblin' on like an old plott is all, hahahaha.

[nait hadya]

....

2) Create a fall, non-hound cougar season in the 100-500 WMUs that are outside of the CMAs....

pretty excited about this change,if it is approved! having successfully tracked down a lion,i found it to be A very exciting hunt. not to mention, it gives me another excuse to be out there looking for tracks in areas that have not been hunted,EVER!

[BLACK RHINO]

Ah I see what you were referencing. Really it is not A reluctance to kill Females that is well proven. As virtually all of the border on private land CMA's do close. What they are calling A issue is that not enough of the kills are in the white zone areas of these CMA's. And is kind of A ridiculous statement. Limited opportunity in those areas = Limited kills. Will be no different for the boot hunters. But also ain't sayin I won't be out there givin it A shot... And don't know who the A team is but for myself have been in meetings with SRD on A few occasions in regards to Cougar management. And pushed and pushed for A pursuit season. But has always been dismissed virtually immediately. To many fear mongers.. "The public will rise against us!!!, Keep your heads low and be happy with what you got!!, Blah, Blah, Fear, Fear... B.S." In my experience, I only get told no for access to private ground about one in ten. See just about the same level of misplaced fear when you tell someone that there is A cougar somewhere in the bush behind their house. So it is what it is.. I have had more then A belly full of going to meetings with SRD to bring ideas to the table. And they just tell us what they have already decided to do. Now I just set back, Send the ideas in with those that are goin to them. And I will hunt with whatever system they want to use. good or bad..

Rhino.

[Brent Sinclair]

Brent this doesn't sound good for you Alberta boys. This is what happens when your trophy deer become a high dollar item. I don't see anything good coming of this proposal.
Good luck, Doug

Doug
There are several reasons for the regulation changes, the problem is politics play a larger roll in that decission making than does wildlife management.
I know it would be quite difficult to operate a business and last in the private sector if we mangaed it like the government is doing our wildlife.

I have hunted afew places over the years but nothing I feel is as mismanaged as Albertas wildlife.
Look at our bighorn sheep for example, you have to kill the " 5-6 yr old Full Curl Ram" and let the 12 yr old broomed 4/5th ram walk away because the government wants to sell hunting licenses.
They told me not many people can age a sheep and it's easier to tell if it's a full curl ram than if it is 8 years old and they want to give everyone hunting opportunity???
So that is how Alberta manages one of it's renewable resources!
I thought Africa was *^%*#@ up....

[Brent Sinclair]

....

2) Create a fall, non-hound cougar season in the 100-500 WMUs that are outside of the CMAs....

pretty excited about this change,if it is approved

It's been aproved..... and several CMA boundries have changed as well.
Six new WMU's added to make up NEW CMA"S..... 1 WMU has been removed from hound hunting.......quotas will not be set until mid summer...

[bob baldwin jr]

I wonder how many people RES and NON RES hunt sheep in Alberta ?

[houndcrzy]

[/quote]


Doug
There are several reasons for the regulation changes, the problem is politics play a larger roll in that decission making than does wildlife management.
I know it would be quite difficult to operate a business and last in the private sector if we mangaed it like the government is doing our wildlife.
[/quote]


You hit it right on the head there as far as im concerned Brent, especially that first sentence. They cut it up pretty good with 32 CMA's now. It'll be interesting to see what the new quotas are this summer. I sure hope they dont get to carried away uping numbers, for the most part I thought we had a pretty damn good thing going.

[Brent Sinclair]

They cut it up pretty good with 32 CMA's now. It'll be interesting to see what the new quotas are this summer. I sure hope they dont get to carried away uping numbers, for the most part I thought we had a pretty damn good thing going.[/quote]

"IF" ASRD does as was reccommended "AND" printed in the minutes of the June 25th 2010 meeting.. THEY need to analyze harvest data over a (3) year period BEFORE adjusting quotas...
We all know this could very well be excluded from actually being the case...
Personally I feel we have it pretty good here in Alberta compared to other areas...however..... the only way we are going to keep what we have and to improve it for all interest groups is to make sure we get a fair deal from the government and input BEFOR THEY make these regulation changes......that is the issue I question...is the input from the houndsmen beening considered in a fair manner....sometimes I think SRD has an agenda in place long before it is made known to the user groups that change is being considered..
I hope I am wrong....

[BLACK RHINO]

Hate to tell you Brent. But that has been my experience with them. Or they would not be implementing these changes. The potential for over harvest with the new plan is..... Well gigantic. Think of any one of the larger of the new CMA's being open on A Thursday without A kill, And only one lion on A quota. That will be 4 days of running unchecked. Guess what day the season opens on this year? Thursday. And that situation will repeat itself more intensely as CMA's close and houndsmen congregate. Have said it before. This is looking like A spring board to lions being on A draw. Make A big enough wreck of it and they can turn it into A need to restrict license holders. Just A opinion. As I said before, Am done wasteing my breath. Will hunt in whatever system they wanna ram down our throats.

Rhino.

[Brent Sinclair]

I do not feel there will be a draw for lions for quite sometime here in Alberta, it is clear the objective is that SRD sees a need to kill more lions.
They do not have the time ,budget or the manpower at this time to deal with this issue of problem wildlife.
Grizzlies are such high profile they consume all the avaliable means SRD has at this time.
Landowners have been allowed to kill lions for the past few years and now they allow a land owner to kill every lion that he wishes on his private land at any time of the season WITHOUT a license and keep those lions they kill, where this has not been the case in the past.
I have not seen anything that states the landowner has to salvage the hide or that they can not shoot spotted kittens.
SRD has also reduced the cost of a lion tag to resident hunting this fall to just over $20.00 from the current cost of $51.31.
It will be a seperate season so you as a resident will now be able to harvest 2 lions in a fiscal year OR as many as you can as a land owner.
I will admit it is likely not going to be a big harvest BUT we do not know this.
The reason for the reduced license cost is so SRD do not have to deal with those who kill a lion during the boot season without a license ( Not many deer hunters will spend $51.31 for a lion tag on a chance they may KILL a lion) ,but they will spend $20.00......... SRD is not fooling me on that one.
It can also be called revenue enhancement...
It's not rocket science when you look at the number of deer hunters that will be out in the field this fall, $20.00 X ??????
There is no quota in the new boot season WMU's and you can kill either sex from Nov. 1-30 ..
Now we open the door on the other topic...Wounding Lions.
IT IS GOING HAPPEN...and who is going to be held accountable for that wounded lion becomming a problem?
In the most of the river breaks and throughout several regions of the proviance, SRD claims there are lions.
Most of this is private and lease land that is made up of large ranches or farms with a rural populatin .
HOWEVER what about the areas where the boot season is in effect close to small towns and a residential populations where it is legal to kill a lion and one becomes wounded and is not recovered?
This lion now has to survive and when he recovers enough to travel hunt anything that is easy to kill is going to become a target , pets as well as livestock and people...we all know perfectly healthy lions kill people, so these lions are a bigger risk in public saefty my opinion..
My question to SRD is who will be accountable if a child is mauled or killed by a lion in rural Alberta or in a town , when the lion was shot during the boot season for ungulates or a land owner that did not think they hit the lion???
I do not believe for one second SRD has told the general population and those in the city that this could happen and this type of harvest also has a signifigant higher chance of orphaning kittens, that will then become a possiable problem lion if they do not starve to death or get killed first.

There are many issues that can arrise from these new regulations, I sure do not know the answer to all of them , but I do know we best be doing alot more to find some of the answers to these concerns before opening the season wide open on what for so long has been clasified as a trophy animal and has generated a considerable amount of revenue for the proviance though both resident and non resident hunting.
We need to harvest both male and female lions..... and the system that is in place now with the use of hounds I feel is the safest, most reliable and successful method there is.
It may need to be revised and expanded into a bigger part of the proviance where there is a need to reduce lions,I feel that is acceptable to most.
But the proposed regulations now being implimented by SRD are not acceptable.
It's time we write our MLA's and let those people know how we feel about these regulation changes and the potential for problems in the future because of them.