Comment
Certainly an extensive amount of work and information presented. Goal to make tag allocations simpler and fairer is over due and where changes can be made to support declining moose populations is welcomed. Some thoughts concerning these guidelines/policies/regulations and other moose population concerns are as follows:
1. To implement across the province may be difficult all at once - so monitoring, analysis and reporting (MAR) results will be key to see if impacts are what is expected both to meet hunter expectations and moose population concerns. Implementing these regulations on a smaller scale as a first step might help? MNRF needs to have a plan to MAR;
2. Without strong enforcement, policies may only be as deep as the paper they are printed on. MNRF has to be on the ground or via remote methods to ensure policies/regulations are being enforced as well as to report if they are working;
3. Past studies have stated that predator control doesn't work! If done it is difficult to monitor and report if the effects are positive on moose populations; animals tend to move - so if predators are removed immigration from the surrounding area would naturally occur. Maybe this tactic is to just provide more hunting opportunities? Not sure it will impact positively on moose populations;
4. Government needs to come to grips with climate change (CC) that probably is the biggest threat to moose and how CC is impacting moose, white-tailed deer, disease, etc. all having negative impacts on moose as well as man made habitat loss (ie. fracturing the boreal forest with roads and large clear cuts and cumulative impacts!). This is a start but government needs to report on how climate change is impacting moose and as a start that takes some extensive studies over long periods of time. We need study as well as action on CC - I don't see this happening and was probably outside the scope of the Big Game focus group and these regulations? Regulations might improve relations with hunters but not sure much impact on declining moose populations. Hopefully the tag allocation is also not a distraction from our declining moose populations which should be of a greater concern and more difficult to solve.
Submitted September 2, 2019 5:21 PM
Comment on
Improvements to moose management as part of the Moose Management Review
ERO number
019-0405
Comment ID
33479
Commenting on behalf of
Comment status