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Posted
Monday, July 15, 2002
The Utah Upland Game Advisory Committee Meeting minutes, June 3, 2002 Opening Present
The minutes of the previous meeting were approved as distributed. Old business Walk-in access program Sharptail and sage-grouse counts The committee voted to support whatever numbers Dean arrives at, but agreed that no more permits should be issued than what the model is currently suggesting. The committee also voted to endorse a target harvest of no more than 10% of the fall population, with a recommendation that the target harvest should probably be lower due to the drought. Chukar management plan New Business Falconry & sage-grouse Todd Ballantyne came to the meeting to represent the falconers and present their concerns to the committee. A lengthy discussion ensued in which the committee learned a great deal about falconry in general and the impact of falconry on the sage grouse in particular. According to Todd, few falconers fly a raptor that is capable of taking a sage grouse and most of their successes against sage grouse occur early in the season. This means that the falconers who enjoy some early season success would be unable to exercise their birds later in the season if they were limited to one two-bird permit. The falconers recognize that reasonable harvest limits need to be imposed on all hunters in order to preserve the sage grouse hunt for all of us, but would like to work out a scheme where they could continue to work their birds later in the season. John Staley proposed that under-subscribed permits could be distributed to falconers, with a maximum of one additional permit per falconer. This would allow falconers to work their birds while not harvesting any more sage grouse than the model suggested. The under-subscribed permits would be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis after the end of the shotgun season. Todd also asked if it might be possible to distribute additional permits based on the success rate during the shotgun season. For instance, if the number of birds harvested by shotgunners was only half of what was expected, he wanted to know if the division could distribute additional permits to falconers. Again, this would ensure than no more birds were harvested than the model suggested. This proposal did not have much support, due to the difficulty in determining hunter success rates in a timely fashion and the additional bureaucratic burden this would place on the division. In the end, the committee endorsed John Staley's proposal. It was felt that the new fee required to get a sage grouse permit would result in enough under-subscribed permits for the falconers to continue to have opportunity later in the season. Agenda for next meeting Our next meeting will be held on Monday, July 15th at 6:00 p.m. at the DWR State offices at 1594 West North Temple, Salt Lake City. The meeting will discuss the Chukar management plan and include a brainstorming session about wildlife issues to discuss during the remainder of the year. Everyone is invited to attend this meeting; it's an opportunity for you to get any issues you know about onto the table. Let us know of donations, projects, etc., made by your group we want to publicize good activities! If you know of other interested parties who should get copies of the minutes, and who are involved in upland game organizations or programs, please get us their name. If you want to make an electronic mail input, please send it to one of the following:
Respectfully submitted Tony Perkins |