Ontora neglected by the OFAH

[Couliewalker]

This is an old thread. Which makes my point more relevant.
If you are waiting for the OFAH to make a wave,or even a ripple don't hold your breath.
They have a track record of doing nothing when it really counts. They are a disappointing let down. As a lobby group they lack drive,heart, and soul. The executives managed to create cushy jobs for themselves THATS IT.

[trimmer21]

This is an old thread. Which makes my point more relevant.
If you are waiting for the OFAH to make a wave,or even a ripple don't hold your breath.
They have a track record of doing nothing when it really counts. They are a disappointing let down. As a lobby group they lack drive,heart, and soul. The executives managed to create cushy jobs for themselves THATS IT.

This is the second necro thread you've posted a rant about the OFAH. So,what's this about,then,really?

[trapper]

I have belonged to Anglers and Hunters since it started but they do not the work for us.What really pissed me off is stocking the no spawning atlantic salmon what a bloody waste of our donations,

[finsfurfeathers]

This is the second necro thread you've posted a rant about the OFAH. So,what's this about,then,really?

Probably wasn't hired

[Fenelon]

I'm an avid hunter, trapper, fisherman, and I'm personally happy that MNR is closing/gating resource extraction roads and restricting vehicle access. I personally think there needs to be more of it. I'm in my mid fifties now, and I've always ranked remoteness and /or an "untouched" or damaged landscape as a very high criteria factor for my enjoyment of the outdoors. It almost doesn't exist anymore in this province, and the scary thing is that it has happened so fast. Less than 50 years ago the average person didn't own and run an ATV, UTV, Argo, or snowmobile. There were large tracts of "quality" pristine bush that was available for use, as long as you were willing to get off your lazy arse and use your arms and legs to visit it. I consider myself very fortunate to have spent 40+ years in a canoe covering pretty much all of the province, often several 150-350km+ trips per year and I'm so very happy that I got to see what I did before it was destroyed by overuse due to easy access. Less than 25 years ago, you could pull the latest edition NTS or OBM map for a remote area of crown land, and plan a trip that would allow you to avoid people, garbage, noise, resource rape, and be able to get some form of solitude. It's next to impossible now to have this experience. What you get now is the proverbial spider network of ATV trails (that show on no map) criss-crossing every piece of land, using the closest resource extraction road as the trunk line. If someone can get an atv and a trailer in, then the place is destroyed. The result is exactly the same everywhere I go now - bloody garbage everywhere, abandoned moose camp garbage, boat caches, tore-up landscape from off road vehicles, over-used campsites covered in human excrement, garbage, and stripped to bare rock. The lake has long ago been raped of all the fish. Sadly, it's no better in the areas that were set aside for preservation (provincial and federal parks). Go visit places like Quetico, Woodland Caribou, Wabakimi, Kopka River, etc., etc and they're all the same - totally crowded, people everywhere, garbage, damaged resources, etc. I'm getting too old to carry a heavy canoe now so I guess I don't have to worry about it anymore. It still think it sure would have been nice to know that something remotely resembling what I saw and experienced was left for the next generation to see. Maybe there's too many rats in the shoebox now. Should have been born 20 years earlier.

[jaycee]

Very interesting view point and comment which many will agree with, myself included.
At 76 years of age, hunted a lot of northern Ontario for moose, and fished many northern lakes, I have seen the country destroyed in many places where years ago it was pristine due to the inability by most to access these areas.
Now as you say with all the atv's and such, people are able to access areas and once they are there , most of these areas are turned into garbage dumps as they will not clean up after being there .
What to do ?? that is a big question, as by closing off many access roads, people are still able to get around them with their atv's and carry on as they have been with no forthought of "leave nothing but your tracks. "

[trimmer21]

Very interesting view point and comment which many will agree with, myself included.
At 76 years of age, hunted a lot of northern Ontario for moose, and fished many northern lakes, I have seen the country destroyed in many places where years ago it was pristine due to the inability by most to access these areas.
Now as you say with all the atv's and such, people are able to access areas and once they are there , most of these areas are turned into garbage dumps as they will not clean up after being there .
What to do ?? that is a big question, as by closing off many access roads, people are still able to get around them with their atv's and carry on as they have been with no forthought of "leave nothing but your tracks. "

More and more,the western provinces have designated vast areas where off-road vehicles are prohibited (much to the chagrin of hunters and anglers everywhere) to halt wide spread ecological destruction. I wouldn't rule out the same thing happening in Ontario,either,sooner rather than later.

[Fenelon]

Somewhere in my office I have a mouse-eared yellow copy of an old Lands and Forests abstract from 1967-1968. The topic is the observed hunter success rate for moose due to the advent and use of "the power toboggan" (the snow mobile). This would have essentially been the first off road motorized vehicle that extended hunter access to what was once pristine untouched crown land. The results were dramatic, even for the few NW Ontario MU's that data existed for. Hunter success and overall tag fill rate went through the roof. That was 50+ years ago, before ATVs, UTVs, argos, etc. It should not come as any surprise that we have no moose left in the province.

[trimmer21]

Somewhere in my office I have a mouse-eared yellow copy of an old Lands and Forests abstract from 1967-1968. The topic is the observed hunter success rate for moose due to the advent and use of "the power toboggan" (the snow mobile). This would have essentially been the first off road motorized vehicle that extended hunter access to what was once pristine untouched crown land. The results were dramatic, even for the few NW Ontario MU's that data existed for. Hunter success and overall tag fill rate went through the roof. That was 50+ years ago, before ATVs, UTVs, argos, etc. It should not come as any surprise that we have no moose left in the province.

Being an avid hunter and ATV enthusiast and getting a tad long in the tooth for back pack Moose hunting,I'd sure hate to see ATV use for hunting prohibited,but,there's no disputing the possibility that Moose population drops may be directly attributable to increased access of sectors of Ontario which weren't traditionally hunted in the past. I'm surprised OMNRF hasn't done a study to determine the effect increased access has had on big game populations.

It's important to acknowledge and not to hijack the origin of this thread about Ontora's efforts to prevent large Crown Land tracts of this province from being allocated as the sole domain of outfitters businesses at the exclusion of all other users and OFAH's alleged failure to acknowledge and support those efforts.

[Deer Hunter]

Should we ban accurate firearms with quality optics? They are a big advantage over open sights? You don’t manage a resource by controlling access or the method of transport. You manage a resource by controlling the number of animals that can be harvested. Oh I almost forgot, we only manage license hunters which are now a very small percentage of the harvest. The unlicensed, unregulated hunters are not managed and harvest an unknown number from the population. How can this work out for the wildlife population. Who will put a stop to it before it’s too late? IMO