Lack of hunting opportunities lamented

Willow Valley Trophy Club

Dear editor,

The purpose of this letter is to express our discontent with our Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) branch of government regarding hunting opportunities of Alberta residents.

Willow Valley Trophy Club has always encouraged youth (and adult) participation with respect to hunting. It is a worthy pursuit on many levels. Fitness levels have diminished and obesity increased. For many, meat is only known as food in a cellophane wrapper that you purchase at a store. Youth need to unplug and get outside. Hunting encourages physical activity and a deeper connection to nature.


To guard against overharvest, it is the resident hunter that takes cuts to big game tags. Unlike any other industry in our province, outfitter tags or allotments are insulated from any reduction that would otherwise occur as a result of changes to resource availability. Game populations drop, resident hunters take drastic cuts, outfitter tags remain the same.

To better understand these numbers it is first important to note that ESRD and Alberta Professional Outfitters Society (APOS) policy supposedly restricts outfitter tags or allotments to 10% of the total number of tags. Illustrating the gross imbalance, let’s look at three wildlife management units (WMU’s) in our area 302, 306 and 400. There are 10, 11 and 10 outfitter allocations for antlered mule deer respectively. Residents receive 13, 26 and 11 tags respectively. Non residents have between 30 and 50 percent of the total tags! This is clearly not the ‘Alberta Advantage’, at least for a resident hunter.

To encourage participation in outdoor pursuits, the provincial government has introduced youth hunting tags at a reduced fee. Though well intentioned, such promotion is obsolete, as resident youth may never qualify to purchase said license. In many areas it is statistically impossible for young hunters to draw a licence within the time frame for which they are defined as youth (12-17 years old).

Outfitting is a viable sector of the tourism industry. Many dream of coming to our beautiful province to pursue big game and we wish that to continue. However, this industry should not be detrimental to resident and youth opportunity. It is simply an unfair advantage outfitters have over hard working, tax paying Albertans.

Regards,

Willow Valley Trophy Club