BigGameHoundsmen.com

I guess the time has come to get together and sort this out.
The Alberta Gov't is seemingly going to radically shift their management strategy on Lions and we need to give them some input.
I have talked with a few guys in the south and north and can see there is alot of different ideas based on what information people may or may not have.
Brent Sinclair and I talked yesterday and it sounds like we might want to get together at least here in the south and talk this over.
I am not hard to find so if you want to be a part of this drop me a line.

Eric
In a previous post liontracker made a very good point...Who Owns the wildlife????

Lets get together with houndsmen that are willing to sit down and provide positive input ...
We need to be one voice, and you mentioned a good point Alberta F&G club needs to have a big say as well.

Lets find the answer to liontrackers comment as that may turn the tables quite a bit!!!!

Brent

What changes?

Eliminating our split quota system,going to total quota instead.
Changing the present CMA boundaries to even out harvest areas.
Adding a boot hunter season in the farm zones,no hounds allowed.
Opening new CMA's in the northern areas like Grande Prairie/Peace River including hounds.
Collecting age data from harvested cats to help in management decisions.
Allowing the new land owner harvest to continue as it has without adjusting quotas.
Reviewing the non-resident hunting allocations.
I am posting all this off my memory so I may have missed something but this should get you started.

thankyou

Eric Muff wrote:Eliminating our split quota system,going to total quota instead.
Changing the present CMA boundaries to even out harvest areas.
Adding a boot hunter season in the farm zones,no hounds allowed.
Opening new CMA's in the northern areas like Grande Prairie/Peace River including hounds.
Collecting age data from harvested cats to help in management decisions.
Allowing the new land owner harvest to continue as it has without adjusting quotas.
Reviewing the non-resident hunting allocations.
I am posting all this off my memory so I may have missed something but this should get you started.

has anyone ever put forward a proposal to allow year round hunting of lion in areas where sheep frequent?

Don't even mention that one to F&W in Edmonton...
I made that comment to SRD a few years ago and they looked at me like I had two heads.
SRD does not want hounds in the field except during a winter season????
I am not sure they can give a crediable answer as to why this is regulation...
I have been told that running hounds during a big game season would not be looked at in the publics eye as a good thing....yet we have several areas with a big game season as well as a cougar season "AT THE SAME TIME" already...
I guess these guys have never looked beyond the Alberta border to see what is going on in other provinces and states...
B.C. has a black bear season, and yes grizzlies inhabit the SAME area the black bear do, and it is a very accepted part of the recreational hunting regulations in that province.
I was told there would never be a hound season for black bear in Alberta because of a grizzly population in the areas of black bear hunting???
Yet it's legal to spot and stalk hunt black bear in grizzly habitat or shoot as many black bear as you like ANYTIME of year on private land to which you have right of access???

Navada has a long season for lion hunting as do several other states and quotas are liberal ,they want lions harverted in sheep country.
Not real sure where we are headed with the lion regulation changes...

nait hadya wrote:

Eric Muff wrote:Eliminating our split quota system,going to total quota instead.
Changing the present CMA boundaries to even out harvest areas.
Adding a boot hunter season in the farm zones,no hounds allowed.
Opening new CMA's in the northern areas like Grande Prairie/Peace River including hounds.
Collecting age data from harvested cats to help in management decisions.
Allowing the new land owner harvest to continue as it has without adjusting quotas.
Reviewing the non-resident hunting allocations.
I am posting all this off my memory so I may have missed something but this should get you started.

has anyone ever put forward a proposal to allow year round hunting of lion in areas where sheep frequent?

Quite honestly I find it very difficult to figure out what the SRD really is trying to accomplish.
On one hand they are willing to accept almost any number of land owner harvested cats with effectively no control of the number harvested or any consequence for that harvest.I think last year Alberta land owners killed nearly 40 lions and the SRD is willing to call this an acceptable number.
On the other hand they want to control Cougar populations at a sustainanble level at the same time providing quality hunting opportunities of mature class Toms.
I don't see how this can work both ways.

Some of what our Alberta SRD guys are basing their theories on is reasearch done in Wyoming and UtahApparently the quotas are set there by trying to maintain a harvest of fewer than 20% adult females in any particular area they would like the population to remain stable in and increasing this harvest to above 20% in areas where they want to reduce the overall population.
The thinking has something to do with the fact that male cougars have larger territories that females and are therefore more vulnerable to harvest by hounds because they must cross more roads than females.
I think that is untrue.We have had GPS collars on males that remain in very small isolated pockets for much of the year and 2-3 times a year loop out to look for females.
They shortly return to the same isolated location and stay there for months on end making them almost impossible for the average "road" hunter to find.
What do you Utah and Wyoming guys think?
Is the system working for you well enough that you would recommend we do the same here?
Alberta puts more cougars in the books each year than any other province or state,does it need to get better?