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SPIRALING COSTS OF BIG GAME TAGS matthews column 18sep08
Too many blue-collar hunters now unable to afford to big game tags
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
Another American dream is turning into an American myth. Between the high cost of gasoline, skyrocketing ammunition fees, and big game tag fees that have far outpaced inflation, many blue-collar hunters can no longer afford to hunt big game.
Late last year I was asked by my long-time friend Lee Hoots, who is the editor of Petersen's Hunting, to do a piece for the magazine on non-resident tags fees in the West. While I don't know if was my whining about how much a trip to Montana last year had cost me just in tag fees and gasoline, he knew it was a story that would resonate with long-time sportsmen. Doing the research for the piece was an eye-opener. [That story is in the Sept., 2008 issue of the magazine on newsstands now.]
When I bought my first deer tag as an 18-year-old here in California in 1972, it cost $3, and really included two tags as part of the package and an application for a third tag. That made the tags $1.50 each. Today, a single resident deer tag costs about $26. If pegged to the cost of inflation that $1.50 tag would cost $7.65 in todays dollars. The $26 tag is a 1,733 percent increase over what it should cost.
Sonke Mastrup, the Department of Fish and Game's deputy director, will tell you that every license or tag fee increase translates directly into fewer hunters taking to the field. For a percent of guys each year, the increase is the final straw and they simply give it up, especially with the disproportionate increase in other costs like gasoline and ammunition (both lead and non-lead). It wasn't all that long ago that California had about 1 million resident hunters, but today we're less than 1/3 that number.
If you figure that each deer hunter has to make up for the money formerly paid by his two counterparts who gave up the sport, you can get a ballpark idea where today's $26 tag fee comes from. Fewer and fewer hunters are paying more and more.
But it goes well beyond just higher tag fees. Sportsmen are getting far less for the investment today. Back in 1972, we had unit biologists throughout the state who actually did annual deer composition counts, there were hunter check stations, and about three times as many wardens as we have now. That means we had about 12 field biologists for Southern California who spent time studying and working with deer. Today we have, I think, two but it might just be one. They don't do annual deer surveys, there hasn't been a check station here in decades, and there's no such thing as field data and biology anymore. We make management decisions based on what someone wrote about our herds decades ago. Some of us are so tired of the shop-worn excuses why our deer herds are fractions of what they once were, that we tune out those who spout the rhetoric. Today's DFG biologists have other priorities and are even afraid to try to grow more deer on public land. Sadly, this is true almost everywhere in the West.
Yet, there are still deer here almost in spite of the California DFG and other game agencies and their lack of management (or active mismanagement, some would say). There are deer here in spite of poaching, in spite of habitat loss, in spite of more roads and road kills than in history, in spite of the highest predator base weve had in over 100 years. Some places actually still have good deer numbers and great public land hunting.
Today, the vast majority of big game hunters can only afford to pursue game in their home states (if that) because of high non-resident tag fees, even though most hunting in the West is on federal lands, not state lands.
When I first hunted pronghorn antelope in Wyoming, I was reasonably assured of getting a $100 tag when I applied. Today, to reasonably assure myself of getting the same tag, I'd have to spend just a tick over $600. Once upon a time, I applied for bighorn sheep tags in all of the Western states each year, only paying the $2 to $5 application fees in each state, knowing my hunting buddies would collectively loan me the $150 to $300 for the tag and license if I was drawn and couldn't come up with it myself. I'd have done the same for them. Today, you have to apply with the whole tag fee amount (which the state usually keeps for three to six months) and in some states you have to actually buy the non-resident general hunting license before you can apply for a tag. With the non-resident gouge on bighorn tags running from $1,700 to $2,300, a lot of us can't even afford to apply to one state, never mind all of them.
Part of the problem is that most Western states are in bed with outfitters who have good lobbies in the state capitols. They insist their livelihoods are at stake and because of declining tag numbers, and they believe they should get a percentage dedicated just to their clients. Most states have set aside a large pool of special tags they sell at higher prices, making sure that hunters who can afford $5,000 to $12,000 or more guided hunts can reasonably be assured of getting a tag. Do you need a translation for that? It's "blue-collar hunters stay home." Unfortunately, a lot of rural community businesses relied on those blue-collar guys, and the little cafes, grocery stores, motels have closed up shop in small towns throughout the West.
There are a lot of ways to exclude anyone but the wealthy. Wyoming says you must have a guide or outfitter to hunt in designated wilderness, and their "preference" tags are about double the cost of the regular tags. Montana simply has set aside a portion of its tags each year for the guides and floats the price based on demand. If the tags don't sell out by September each year, they reduce the price the following year; if they do, they increase the price. So the Montana non-resident outfitter deer license has gone from $795 to $1,100 in just the last three years, jumping about $150 a year. (The general non-resident deer license is $353 with about three to one adds of drawing.) All the Western states auction off one or more of their coveted bighorn sheep tags to the highest bidder and rake in $60,000 or a lot more from some wealthy guy. All this is simply wrong.
Once upon a time, hunters from across the country dreamed of packing up family truck or sedan and heading to the high sagebrush and aspen country of the West and hunting mule deer, elk, and pronghorn. Not that long ago, a working man could save his money and afford to do just that on a one- or two-week camping vacation on public lands. Not any more. Now poorer hunters are even being squeezed out by costs in their home states.
America's big game doesn't belong to the people anymore. It belongs to an increasingly fewer number of wealthy people.
Too many blue-collar hunters now unable to afford to big game tags
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
Another American dream is turning into an American myth. Between the high cost of gasoline, skyrocketing ammunition fees, and big game tag fees that have far outpaced inflation, many blue-collar hunters can no longer afford to hunt big game.
Late last year I was asked by my long-time friend Lee Hoots, who is the editor of Petersen's Hunting, to do a piece for the magazine on non-resident tags fees in the West. While I don't know if was my whining about how much a trip to Montana last year had cost me just in tag fees and gasoline, he knew it was a story that would resonate with long-time sportsmen. Doing the research for the piece was an eye-opener. [That story is in the Sept., 2008 issue of the magazine on newsstands now.]
When I bought my first deer tag as an 18-year-old here in California in 1972, it cost $3, and really included two tags as part of the package and an application for a third tag. That made the tags $1.50 each. Today, a single resident deer tag costs about $26. If pegged to the cost of inflation that $1.50 tag would cost $7.65 in todays dollars. The $26 tag is a 1,733 percent increase over what it should cost.
Sonke Mastrup, the Department of Fish and Game's deputy director, will tell you that every license or tag fee increase translates directly into fewer hunters taking to the field. For a percent of guys each year, the increase is the final straw and they simply give it up, especially with the disproportionate increase in other costs like gasoline and ammunition (both lead and non-lead). It wasn't all that long ago that California had about 1 million resident hunters, but today we're less than 1/3 that number.
If you figure that each deer hunter has to make up for the money formerly paid by his two counterparts who gave up the sport, you can get a ballpark idea where today's $26 tag fee comes from. Fewer and fewer hunters are paying more and more.
But it goes well beyond just higher tag fees. Sportsmen are getting far less for the investment today. Back in 1972, we had unit biologists throughout the state who actually did annual deer composition counts, there were hunter check stations, and about three times as many wardens as we have now. That means we had about 12 field biologists for Southern California who spent time studying and working with deer. Today we have, I think, two but it might just be one. They don't do annual deer surveys, there hasn't been a check station here in decades, and there's no such thing as field data and biology anymore. We make management decisions based on what someone wrote about our herds decades ago. Some of us are so tired of the shop-worn excuses why our deer herds are fractions of what they once were, that we tune out those who spout the rhetoric. Today's DFG biologists have other priorities and are even afraid to try to grow more deer on public land. Sadly, this is true almost everywhere in the West.
Yet, there are still deer here almost in spite of the California DFG and other game agencies and their lack of management (or active mismanagement, some would say). There are deer here in spite of poaching, in spite of habitat loss, in spite of more roads and road kills than in history, in spite of the highest predator base weve had in over 100 years. Some places actually still have good deer numbers and great public land hunting.
Today, the vast majority of big game hunters can only afford to pursue game in their home states (if that) because of high non-resident tag fees, even though most hunting in the West is on federal lands, not state lands.
When I first hunted pronghorn antelope in Wyoming, I was reasonably assured of getting a $100 tag when I applied. Today, to reasonably assure myself of getting the same tag, I'd have to spend just a tick over $600. Once upon a time, I applied for bighorn sheep tags in all of the Western states each year, only paying the $2 to $5 application fees in each state, knowing my hunting buddies would collectively loan me the $150 to $300 for the tag and license if I was drawn and couldn't come up with it myself. I'd have done the same for them. Today, you have to apply with the whole tag fee amount (which the state usually keeps for three to six months) and in some states you have to actually buy the non-resident general hunting license before you can apply for a tag. With the non-resident gouge on bighorn tags running from $1,700 to $2,300, a lot of us can't even afford to apply to one state, never mind all of them.
Part of the problem is that most Western states are in bed with outfitters who have good lobbies in the state capitols. They insist their livelihoods are at stake and because of declining tag numbers, and they believe they should get a percentage dedicated just to their clients. Most states have set aside a large pool of special tags they sell at higher prices, making sure that hunters who can afford $5,000 to $12,000 or more guided hunts can reasonably be assured of getting a tag. Do you need a translation for that? It's "blue-collar hunters stay home." Unfortunately, a lot of rural community businesses relied on those blue-collar guys, and the little cafes, grocery stores, motels have closed up shop in small towns throughout the West.
There are a lot of ways to exclude anyone but the wealthy. Wyoming says you must have a guide or outfitter to hunt in designated wilderness, and their "preference" tags are about double the cost of the regular tags. Montana simply has set aside a portion of its tags each year for the guides and floats the price based on demand. If the tags don't sell out by September each year, they reduce the price the following year; if they do, they increase the price. So the Montana non-resident outfitter deer license has gone from $795 to $1,100 in just the last three years, jumping about $150 a year. (The general non-resident deer license is $353 with about three to one adds of drawing.) All the Western states auction off one or more of their coveted bighorn sheep tags to the highest bidder and rake in $60,000 or a lot more from some wealthy guy. All this is simply wrong.
Once upon a time, hunters from across the country dreamed of packing up family truck or sedan and heading to the high sagebrush and aspen country of the West and hunting mule deer, elk, and pronghorn. Not that long ago, a working man could save his money and afford to do just that on a one- or two-week camping vacation on public lands. Not any more. Now poorer hunters are even being squeezed out by costs in their home states.
America's big game doesn't belong to the people anymore. It belongs to an increasingly fewer number of wealthy people.
