Rules Partial To Special Interests Seem Primitive

FROM SPORTS MENU C2 (Saturday, January 31, 1998): Replay Washington’s 1996 hunter success rates were incorrectly reported in Rich Landers’ column Thrusday. The percentage of hunters filling their tags, by user group: Modern firearm, 23.5 percent for deer, 9.3 for elk. Archery, 17.8 percent for deer, 8.3 for elk.

Hunting was never supposed to be easy, especially with primitive weapons.

Understanding hunting regulations was never intended to be impossible.

Those are the basic principles for controversial proposals to simplify Washington’s hunting regulations pamphlet.

“When our own agency staff has trouble deciphering and answering questions about the pamphlet, there’s a problem,” said Mark Quinn, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department regional wildlife manager in Ephrata.

But the Fish and Wildlife Commission last week voted to postpone action on the proposals until next year for the same reason the regulations became a quagmire in the first place.

Archers and muzzleloaders have become intense lobbying groups that no longer are content to hunt with odds stacked against them.

They want special seasons set in a manner that gives a hunter with a primitive weapon at least as good a chance of bagging an elk or deer as a hunter with a modern rifle.

The state separated statewide seasons for muzzleloaders, archers and rifle hunters in 1984. The additional seasons were deemed viable without crippling big-game herds because success rates for the primitive weapon hunts would be lower than for mainstream hunters shooting modern firearms.

That scenario has changed under constant pressure on wildlife managers to carve out special primitive weapon seasons. Numerous specific hunts have been scheduled before the modern firearms hunts, as well as primitive weapons seasons late in the year when wintering wildlife are concentrated.

Nowadays, 115 deer and elk hunts of one type or another run from September through December. The success rate of archers and muzzleloaders has surpassed that of modern rifle hunters.

According to the state’s 1996 Game Harvest Report:

Modern firearms hunters had success rates of 5.6 percent for deer, 6.1 percent for elk.

Muzzleloaders scored 13.6 percent for deer, 15 percent for elk.

Archers had rates of 10.4 percent for deer, 11.2 percent for elk.

The gains of archers and muzzleloaders have been at the expense of modern rifle hunters - the silent majority.

This isn’t acceptable for democratic reasons.

Certainly it’s impairing the ability of law-abiding hunters to understand the rules, and the demand for parity may be taking a toll on big-game herds.

Aware that standing up to special interests wouldn’t be easy, Fish and Wildlife director Bern Shanks made an unorthodox decision. He named someone outside the agency’s wildlife management division to oversee the statewide simplification of the hunting pamphlet.

The nod went to Bruce Smith, the department’s thick-skinned, anvil-chinned regional manager in Spokane.

Smith is neither a dummy nor a wimp. But he’s reasonable enough to compromise when hunters make sense and not threats.

The proposal he developed isn’t perfect by his own admission. But even though changes already have evolved from a round of public meetings across the state, the outcry was loud enough to make the commission buckle.

“I thought it was probably too much too fast,” said commissioner Kelly White of Kettle Falls. “I couldn’t find a user group that was happy with it.”

That’s not surprising. The proposal would cut back on some specific opportunities, especially for archers and muzzleloaders who think they have a sacred right to special treatment. For example:

The number of muzzleloader hunting days for elk would drop from 20 to 7. Smith already is considering additional late-season muzzleloader days, but not the seemingly endless opportunity of the past.

Archers and muzzleloaders no longer would compete among their own smaller pools of constituents for special permits. All hunters in all user groups would apply for all permits in a single pool.

Hunting based on 132 Game Management Units (GMU’s) would be replaced with statewide seasons and permit hunts based on 39 counties. The result would be fewer special hunts to target specific hunting opportunities in small areas. However, special hunts within counties could be scheduled using rivers or highways as easily understood dividing lines.

“For instance, Highway 12 could divide Columbia County for purposes of managing deer and elk,” Smith said. “This would be far easier than trying to understand the seven-line description we currently use to define a GMU.”

The simplification proposal deserves way more credit than most hunters are willing to give.

Muzzleloaders would get the first crack at the Colockum elk herd. They would get a chance to hunt elk statewide, rather than being crammed into three units in the Blue Mountains.

Archers and muzzleloaders likely would be tapped for special hunts where deer and elk cause damage to crops - an opportunity that wouldn’t come at the expense of modern rifle hunters.

Best of all, the simplification proposal would reduce the size of the hunting regulations pamphlet by two-thirds, from 64 to about 24 pages. About 16 pages would be eliminated by ditching the sometimes confusing descriptions of GMUs.

The size reduction would occur even though the general hunting pamphlet would incorporate regulations for upland game bird and turkeys, which currently are published in separate pamphlets.

Simplification is a laudable goal.

But even with Smith leading the charge, it won’t happen unless modern rifle hunters become the more vocal majority.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508.

This sidebar appeared with the story: RULES MEETING State officials will explain the proposed simplification of Washington’s hunting regulations at a meeting sponsored by the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. at 6116 N. Market.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review