mman - good post. You make some good points.
I think it is their responsibility to tell us, show us, etc. what the importance is. They should publish something we can see that validates that importance. Some of their research perhaps. They need to publish more data. For instance I'd like to see the report that shows how many deer we have period and where. Where are the 3 million deer we have? I'd like to see that map, I'd like to see that broken down by county, etc.
Never seen that.
I honestly think they have completely failed at this. None of us know what the department even does for the most part other than send some Wardens around to write us tickets.
Some have said this for a while, that more information explained and discussed, and less of the "Take your medicine, it's good for you and just listen to us so do it now." attitude, would have been best from the start. Back when the "voluntary" GC was put into place, and then the mandatory. But what hunters got was the "You know this is good, other states do it, we'll use the data" and pretty much were left to wonder. The insularity, lack of complete transparency and then "Gee, I wonder why they're not doing this and listening and they're rebeling?" happened.
And those on here who questioned and asked for more were, and sometimes still are, told to shut up, fall into lockstep, quit bitching, quit being "anarchists" wanting the ability to do whatever and whenever, that you're not "good conservationists," that we "should just know management is good" and more. We learned about private meetings around the state with specially invited folks. We learned about a supposed agreement for GameCheck in exchange for a February deer season extension. Lot of stuff has happened in the last five or six years that definitely warrants questions from a concerned constiutency.
So, welcome to the "the public should get more information" club, Goatkiller. It's not a matter of not being a conservationist or being legal or whatever, and I'll certainly not call you names or question your conservation ethics. But it's good to see you're also interested in wanting enough information and transparency to understand what's happening.
Perhaps the "listening sessions" with hunters that start next Thursday night at Hoover Tactical in B'ham will be helpful.
