KansasBrittney said:
Absolutely!! No question I'd be in support, but I have a hard time trusting folks w/ my money. I'd have to see the results to be in full support. I'd probably wait until the WIHA map came out each year to buy my stamp. KDWP would have to ban outfitters from the lands and set a maximum group size limit before I'd buy the stamp also. If outfitters and/or groups of 40 were allowed to hunt the WIHA, I'd stick solely to private land. If I had no private land, I guess I'd probably buy a stamp regardless. It would be nice to see the expansion of WIHA. I don't think many folks would complain too much about helping contribute to the leasing of more acres.
Great post - Applause for Kansas Brittney!
BritChaser said:
With 1.1 million acres of private land enrolled in the Kansas walk-in hunting program, it seems a bit early to talk about how to salvage it. It is the most successful such program in the U.S., dwarfing all others. Moreover, the KDWP website says nothing about a decrease in acreage, significant or otherwise. Nor have I heard anything about decreases in walk-in acreage. I would be interested to know who is saying the program is under evaluation or losing acreage.
Of course the KDWP doesn't say anything about a decrease in acreage. Why would they? But if you'll recall, they sure talked about it when the program was increasing. There was a big push to get to 1 million acres and the KDWP leased pretty much anything they could to get to that magic number. This was for marketing reasons. After hitting 1 million, the program appears to have been "put on the shelf".
I don't recall anybody saying the program is being evaluated, however I'm the one that said that acreage is shrinking. What do I base that on? The actual numbers. I've been keeping a spreadsheet for every county showing the acreage and number of WIHA's in every county since program's inception. It's one of the ways I find new areas and which areas have been deleted without spending hours comparing year to year maps. It's easy find out how much total land the program has by simply totaling the columns.
In addition, I have made transparencies that can be used as overlays showing the change from one year to the next. This highlights the new spots and also lets me know what spots have been pulled from the program. This along with copies of every WIHA atlas since the beginning has proven VERY helpful.
Bottom line, total WIHA acreage is shrinking very quickly. What isn't shown on the maps is that the spots with good habitat are shrinking at an alarming rate. Many of these spots get hunted/tried out until the contract expires then they get leased up.
For those of you who believe we're not losing acreage, take you favorite county and check it against last year's map. See how many new spots you find (there are some). Then see how many spots are gone. Now, look at the difference.
Perhaps an easier way is to simply check the total acreage available in a given county at the front of each WIHA booklet and compare it to the same county last year...or the year before. Just because we've currently got the best program in the nation doesn't mean that it will stay that way. Some might even argue that the best hunting offered by the WIHA program is behind us. That's scarey.
While the program is successful, it needs some work if we're going to continue to try and sustain both a good upland bird population and good hunting.
Point!