As much as I believe in our democratic process and our right to vote, there’s one place, in my opinion, where we must stay out of it. I’m talking about wildlife management. These decisions must be left up to the wildlife biologists. The general public is not well enough informed to make these decisions. Unfortunately, there are times when even these so called experts in the field seem to stray from common sense, although politics seems to somehow get involved.

I would be very uncomfortable if hunting was left to a vote of the people. We hunters are a minority, and I suspect, though I hope I’m wrong, that the majority doesn’t fully understand that our wildlife must be managed. I hope that in a small way, I can present from week to week a healthy, positive image of hunting.

Case in point: The residents of Colorado are getting ready to vote on the reintroduction of wolves. For openers, Colorado does not have the vast wilderness areas of Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho. There are too many towns, highways, housing developments, and ski resorts sprinkled throughout the rugged expanses of the state. The reintroduction, if it goes through, will probably take place in Rocky Mountain National Park. RMNP is a tenth the size of Yellowstone. In Yellowstone, it took the wolves nearly a decade to chew through the elk and moose populations. It will take the wolves only 3-5 years to depopulate RMNP.

Once the wolves decimate their RMNP prey pool, horses, cows, and family dogs will be on the menu. These livestock losses will break the Parks and Wildlife Department. How? By compensating ranchers, etc. for their losses. Will Colorado, a state that is on the verge of banning trapping as well as mountain lion hunts, and has already outlawed spring bear hunts, ever initiate wolf hunts? I don’t think so. It seems to me that with its legalized marijuana, Colorado is too liberal to establish a wolf season once reintroduction takes place.

Neighboring Wyoming isn’t without its own problems. Thanks to some brilliant thinking on the part of the National Parks Service (I alluded above to a possible lack of common sense on the part of the experts), helicopters are being used to gun down every mountain goat they can find within the boundaries of Grand Teton National Park. On top of this they’re leaving them all to rot. If the goats are really a problem, why not allow hunters to manage the problem? It would be far more cost efficient. With this in mind, the state is lobbying for the use of hunters to do the job if it really must be done.

Why hassle the mountain goats? The goats are supposedly encroaching on wild sheep, all of which are outside the park’s boundary in the first place. Meanwhile, studies show that the sheep are more impacted by backcountry skiers than anything done by the mountain goats. (Eastmans’ Hunting Journal. February/March 2020)

With the SDGF&P Department considering the creation of 500 nonresident Special Buck licenses for Eastern South Dakota, I have to ask where these bucks (deer) will come from. They don’t materialize out of nowhere. Am I correct in assuming that license numbers will be cut in our most popular units to accommodate these additional licenses?

This, to me, is obviously about money. I realize that pheasant hunt license revenues are down, and the funding must come from somewhere. I have a few suggestions that won’t solve the problem, but it will help in a small way. First, increase the cost of preserve licenses. The people who can afford up to a thousand dollars a day for preserve hunting can afford it.

Second, I cannot speak for the tailwaters in Pierre and Ft. Thompson, but I can tell you that the tailwaters at Pickstown are literally crawling with paddlefish. Why not go with twenty-five paddlefish tags at forty dollars, the same as a single deer tag, and see what the traffic will bear? If the harvest of twenty-five is too many, either cut back in the future or close it completely once again.

The rip-rap beneath the Randall Dam is treacherous, and restricting the snagging to boats might be a necessity. If I’m way out of line with this suggestion, lay it on me. I do know that some of my fondest memories of days past involve paddlefish snagging, and I know that it is quite popular at Yankton.

See you next week.