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What do you all think of a moratorium on hunting for a few years to give the critters a chance to recover after all the lose of habitat from the fires?

I would not include predator hunting in that.
 
Not a bad idea. I may be for it if all the plans and details make sense. It is bad enough to lose a home to a fire, one that you pay for, but these tasty animals live in the thick of it. I feel bad.
 
I think one major issue is that if you cancel hunting for a season, no licenses or tags will be purchased. That will eliminate a great deal of income for the Game depts.

A lot of animals will move to greener pastures. Others will starve in place or be easy prey for predators. I recall when they had that big fire in Winthrop. They were asking hunters to come in and reduce the herd to prevent starvation.

As a whole, I don't think hunters have that great of an impact on the animal population.
 
I think one major issue is that if you cancel hunting for a season, no licenses or tags will be purchased. That will eliminate a great deal of income for the Game depts.

A lot of animals will move to greener pastures. Others will starve in place or be easy prey for predators. I recall when they had that big fire in Winthrop. They were asking hunters to come in and reduce the herd to prevent starvation.

As a whole, I don't think hunters have that great of an impact on the animal population.
Well, I like what he wrote. I would volunteer to come in hunt them so they do not starve. Heck, I just want to hunt!!! :)
 
While this idea seems well intended, it may likely be the opposite of what needs to be done in regards to game animals displaced by Oregon's massive fires this year.

Back in 2014 and as a result of the Carlson Complex fire in Washington it was necessary to quickly thin the deer population in the region due to the animals loss of habitat driving them into agricultural areas and leading to population density problems when the displaced animals bunched up with other members of their species in areas that couldn't support that number of animals. This increase in local population can lead to things like more starvation, environmental damage, animal disease, and conflicts between humans and animals as they migrate to human inhabited areas.

Here's some links to a few articles that go into more detail about this and similar situations:

Wildfires impacting big game & how to track fires

Washington wildfires destroy mule deer habitat

That all being said - I'm not an expert on this topic, and this is all just my layman's understanding from research I've done in the past.
 
As far as Oregon goes, with so many people displaced and living at evac sites or out of hotels I doubt they will be hunting near the affected areas or hunting at all. I don't foresee alot of pressure being put on animals that had to boogie. If biologists even attempted to go out (doubt they will any time soon) and count species and find the numbers have hit dangerous lows then I'm sure things would get locked up for a bit. I pretty much stick to the Alsea unit in the coast range west of Corvallis and I have every tag under the sun but to be honest at this point I'm not even concerned with hunting right now. :(
 
All ODF land is closed, and as far as I can tell so are all the timber production lands, that pretty much just leaves private land, so its basically closed for now. That being said I don"t agree with a moratorium on hunting, maybe some new limits on tags (non resident tags in particular that way residents and those affected have a better chance at a hunt), but definitely no moratorium. I know of several families that rely on game meat to survive, a moratorium will only hurt these people and will probably turn more than one person to poaching.

Disclaimer: I am currently waiting and watching for an opening as I am very much dependent on wild game making up my families diet this winter, if no openings we will buy beef and hopefully waterfowl season will supplement.
 
Just watch the poaching jump, then. People are gonna do what they want, regardless of permission from .gov. How many here have taken game in a unit, or at a time of season/day they shouldn't, then claimed it was on the up and up on official forms? Or let a buddy use their tag and claim they personally took the animal? Heck, shot one on the road. Seen it done, seen the blood. Even just shot one to shoot one because, frankly, who's gonna know? Think the danger rangers are that well staffed? Or even care for the most part?

You can cancel hunting but you won't stop it
 
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Funny how we come at things from such individual places. I was just thinking last night about, as sad as all of this is, the one bright spot would be hunting in the coming years.

I think you're well intentioned in what you're saying but in addition to the other points made above — especially the fact that we only have those animals there to begin with because of hunting tags and dollars, not to mention poaching — keep in mind harvest numbers (and the tags that go with them) are set each year according to management objectives. There are systems in place that already account for the change and when we all follow them, history shows good things can happen.
 
While these fires are no doubt dramatic they are not the first on this scale. Anyone remember the Biscuit fire or the Long Draw fire?

Animals move out much faster and earlier during disasters such as fires.

I have expected to see more deer moving into my area due to the fires but I am still a ways from them and there are a lot of woods in between for them to relocate.

I would not agree with a moratorium on hunting due to fires, or most any other reason.
 
Have always been amazed that one of the punishmentr for poaching is to remove their hunting priveledges. They dont care if they had permission.in the first place.
 
My concern is that if we dont get some moisture on the ground before the begining of October they may cancel deer season due to fire hazard. Brlng on some rain.
 

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