Ontario’s sweeping Moose Project proposal leaves hunters reeling. Have your say now.

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Originally Posted by SK33T3R

I don't think closing off areas to ATV's etc is a very good idea at all! Doing so will only concentrate most the hunters to the limited areas they can access. Also we do have an aging hunter population with limited mobility. There would be a huge drop in hunter #'s if these older hunters were now squeezed out of the game. This country is our country! It belongs to ALL OF US! Access to all of the crown land is our right NOT A PRIVILEGE! Seasons, limits, management of our game - NOT our hunters is the way it should work!
Closing access will only benefit the select few to an exclusive area of land that they don't own or pay taxes for! WE ALL PAY and we should all use it.

Also if access is denied then ATV sales will plummet. Most of the moose hunters only use their ATV for a couple weeks a year! In a nutshell - If the gov't is concerned about revenue - closing off crown access would be a disaster!

Fished out trout lakes by snowmobilers! Don't blame the snowmobile! Either slot size or reduce the limit! Pretty easy cure to the ailment if you ask me.

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First,let me state,catagorically,that I'm not in favor of banning the use of ATV's for Moose hunting,altogether. Having said that,if it's clearly demonstarted and deemed necessary to close some areas to motorized use,then I may not like it,but,I'll support it as long as it's inclusive to everyone. There's only a couple of things with your assumptions that aren't quite correct. That's that nowhere has there ever been an outright denial of access of Crown Land by anyone,anywhere,in Ontario,except for the usual restrictions for logging and mining safety. I agree that access by everyone is a right,but,how it's accessed is not. Use of any motorized vehicle is by provincial regulation,therefore,is a priviledge which can disappear with the stroke of pen.
The assumption that ATV sales will be affected is equally in error. More people use them than snowmobiles,simply because they can be used,virtually,year round where snow machines can only be used for,maybe,three months out of the entire year. ATV sales have dwarfed snow mobile sales by almost 80% in the last ten years. There's 50X more non-hunters than hunters who use ATV's.
While it's true that Moose hunter demographics have shifted to older hunters,the vast majority are road hunters.To say that they would be impacted by ATV use restrictions may be somewhat accurate,but,personally,I doubt that would stop any of them Moose hunting completely. I'm getting very close to that demographic and it sure as he** won't be stopping this guy,let me tell ya. LOL

I agree that ATVs should be disallowed for moose hunting, but other vehicles like trucks still allowed. This way some of the deeper areas only accessible by ATVs are protected while the logging roads are still accessible to everyone.

I have seen it, like I am sure most of us, on opening day the endless procession of ATVs even in areas hard to get to. To me who likes to hike to my hunting spot, they are a constant and unwelcome, noisy intrusion. They scour the land, and the moose have nowhere to hide.

Time to even out the odds a bit and scale down on the technology.

I believe that much of our frustration comes from the feeling that, in the context of Ontario's long-declining moose population, we hunters are not being listened to.

I've attended the consultations, I've posted on the EBR, I've participated in the workshops and conferences and I've seen the who's who of Ontario's hunting community stand up and address the Minister or Deputy Minister. I can tell you that much of what has been suggested in this thread is consistent with what people have been saying to the MNR for years. Yet the MNR's response sometimes consists of some minor tinkering around the edges (think of the moose tag review 5 years ago) or, like the recently announced changes, have no resemblance to any suggestions that the hunting community has put forth.

I'm starting to lose faith in whatever it is that goes on at the Provincial Big Game Advisory Committee level. Are our representative organizations just as frustrated as we are, or are they part of the problem?

Part of my professional work involves soliciting public input in the context of developing policies and regulations, and when I saw the MNR's most recent opinion survey: (http://apps.mnr.gov.on.ca/apps/dashb...moose-project/), I laughed out loud. There is no directly useful information to be gathered from this survey. Its only role is to allow policy-makers to say they've consulted. I've seen this kind of thing before; the survey is nothing more than a placebo.

No wonder we feel that no one is listening to us.

Why can't I get to any page but pg 1?

I feel that ATV use should never be banned. People with health conditions should be allowed to hunt as well. If people are not allowed a quad how many moose do you think would get shot and lost because people are too lazy to track them down or how much of a moose would be retrieved, would we all have to take horses up ? If you don't like quads hunt somewhere where they can not get to. Put laws and quotas in on how many moose are allowed or shut it down all together.

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Originally Posted by millwrong82

I feel that ATV use should never be banned. People with health conditions should be allowed to hunt as well. If people are not allowed a quad how many moose do you think would get shot and lost because people are too lazy to track them down or how much of a moose would be retrieved, would we all have to take horses up ? If you don't like quads hunt somewhere where they can not get to. Put laws and quotas in on how many moose are allowed or shut it down all together.

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I don't think it's a question of not liking ATV's. It's a question of an unfair balance toward the hunter than toward the animals. One needs to ask "what did we do before we had ATV's"? Answering that question would go a long way to a sensible solution. People shooting Moose and abandoning the carcass because they're too lazy to pack it out need to pay $5K fines and do serious jail time. There's simply no excuse for that BS. While physically challenged hunters are accomodated through special arrangements with reards to all hunting,it's certainly not for the ill or the weak. Using that as an excuse to justify using ATV's as a blanket policy will not hold water,at all.

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Originally Posted by trimmer21

I don't think it's a question of not liking ATV's. It's a question of an unfair balance toward the hunter than toward the animals. One needs to ask "what did we do before we had ATV's"? Answering that question would go a long way to a sensible solution. People shooting Moose and abandoning the carcass because they're too lazy to pack it out need to pay $5K fines and do serious jail time. There's simply no excuse for that BS. While physically challenged hunters are accomodated through special arrangements with reards to all hunting,it's certainly not for the ill or the weak. Using that as an excuse to justify using ATV's as a blanket policy will not hold water,at all.

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Exactly! Trimmer 21 gets it. In the olden days when there were plenty of moose, there weren't that many people using ATVs. Now they are like mosquitoes in Moose country tearing down the logging roads and side trails leaving no stones unturned. The balance has been tipped too far toward the hunter with everyone having ATVs. Time to go back to basics a bit or we will have no more moose to hunt, and neither will our children.

[QUOTE=SK33T3R;875847]I don't think closing off areas to ATV's etc is a very good idea at all! Doing so will only concentrate most the hunters to the limited areas they can access. Also we do have an aging hunter population with limited mobility. There would be a huge drop in hunter #'s if these older hunters were now squeezed out of the game. This country is our country! It belongs to ALL OF US! Access to all of the crown land is our right NOT A PRIVILEGE! Seasons, limits, management of our game - NOT our hunters is the way it should work!
Closing access will only benefit the select few to an exclusive area of land that they don't own or pay taxes for! WE ALL PAY and we should all use it.

You have the right to access Crown land. You DON"T have the right to ride your ATV there. Big difference.

No one is saying Crown land should be entirely closed to ATV use. If a small percentage was closed to ATV traffic it would have minimal impact on hunting areas allowed.

I often wonder how hunters survived pre - 1980s when ATVs did not exist .... Oh wait, I know. They got off their "you know what" and walked.

Also if access is denied then ATV sales will plummet. Most of the moose hunters only use their ATV for a couple weeks a year! In a nutshell - If the gov't is concerned about revenue - closing off crown access would be a disaster!

This is nonsensical. Didn't realize the primary mandate of the MNR was to bolster ATV sales in Ontario ...

Fished out trout lakes by snowmobilers! Don't blame the snowmobile! Either slot size or reduce the limit! Pretty easy cure to the ailment if you ask me.

Actually one should blame the snowmobile. It results in greatly increased pressure, which means fewer fish regardless of slot sizes and limit reductions.

Increased access = decreased quality. This is true for hunting, fishing, camping sites, etc.

yep while we are at it lets take the motors off the boats and canoes, take the scopes off the rifles , take away crossbows and compounds and go to only stick and string , heck why not gps and radios as well , afterall everyone of these things help people take more game , or maybe we could see our MNR actually find the real root of the problem and work to fix it

[QUOTE=buckchaser;876030]

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Originally Posted by SK33T3R

I don't think closing off areas to ATV's etc is a very good idea at all! Doing so will only concentrate most the hunters to the limited areas they can access. Also we do have an aging hunter population with limited mobility. There would be a huge drop in hunter #'s if these older hunters were now squeezed out of the game. This country is our country! It belongs to ALL OF US! Access to all of the crown land is our right NOT A PRIVILEGE! Seasons, limits, management of our game - NOT our hunters is the way it should work!
Closing access will only benefit the select few to an exclusive area of land that they don't own or pay taxes for! WE ALL PAY and we should all use it.

You have the right to access Crown land. You DON"T have the right to ride your ATV there. Big difference.

No one is saying Crown land should be entirely closed to ATV use. If a small percentage was closed to ATV traffic it would have minimal impact on hunting areas allowed.

I often wonder how hunters survived pre - 1980s when ATVs did not exist .... Oh wait, I know. They got off their "you know what" and walked.

Also if access is denied then ATV sales will plummet. Most of the moose hunters only use their ATV for a couple weeks a year! In a nutshell - If the gov't is concerned about revenue - closing off crown access would be a disaster!

This is nonsensical. Didn't realize the primary mandate of the MNR was to bolster ATV sales in Ontario ...

Fished out trout lakes by snowmobilers! Don't blame the snowmobile! Either slot size or reduce the limit! Pretty easy cure to the ailment if you ask me.

Actually one should blame the snowmobile. It results in greatly increased pressure, which means fewer fish regardless of slot sizes and limit reductions.

Increased access = decreased quality. This is true for hunting, fishing, camping sites, etc.

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wow! touchy SUBJECT! AND BOLD PRINT TOO BOOT!

An ATV or a snowmobile is just technology - just like all the other technology out there today! It's like blaming the gun for the murder! DUH! conservation - to me - always meant wise use - not no use! The MNR can factor in all this technology into the plan but I guess it's just easier to shut everything down! Sure would be nice for that outfitter way back in that flies in his clients or for you young bucks that have more brawn then brains and can get in further then us old guys. It would not matter how many guys were motoring around or how deep they went - If they ain't got the tag then what harm is it!

Increased access = decreased quality ??

for who? try telling that to a guy who got way in there - he'd say it was quality for him!

I'm really surprised that hunters are blaming hunters for the moose mess. We only pull on the oars as they say - we didn't steer us to where we are today!