Bob Mills has been hunting for a long time. Since he was 15 in fact.
Mills has operated a Hunt camp in Magnetawan for 25 years. He says he has never gotten a moose tag through the current lottery process.
“For the last 25 years I have applied for a tag in the draw and have not got one in 25 years,” he said.
“The camp below us who are all from down south, get a license every year, sometimes two or three. It seems odd that Northern people are not getting the licenses, the southern people are. It is unfair, we put out the same amount of money every year and it is time things change, it is ridiculous.”
Mills was one of dozens of area hunters that congregated at the Davedi Club Thursday night as part of a meeting put on by the newly formed Big Game Management Advisory committee.
The organization is holding six meetings like this one across the province and is part of the government’s review of moose management in Ontario, which was announced last fall.
Nipissing MPP and Finance Minister Vic Fedeli took in the event. Fedeli admits feeling sympathy for area hunters and feels there needs to be some form of change within the current moose tag lottery system.
“I have been very critical of the lottery process in the fact that in area 47 around Trout Creek there is only one moose tag,” said Fedeli.
“Every time I see a dead moose on the highway around Trout Creek or Powassan, I photograph it and I post it. Sadly they are pretty gory photographs but that is somebody’s meat for a season they could have had.
“I view it as the fact that because they are not allowing moose tags to be doled out in a historic manner, that there are more moose on the highways being killed and to me that is the science.”
Jamie Stewart, MNRF Wildlife Manager based in Peterborough, was expecting to hear the criticism.
“We hope to hear from hunters across the province on things that they’d like to see, changes they would like to see to the Moose tag draw and potential changes to the quota setting process for moose management,” said Stewart prior to Thursday’s event.
“We know that hunters are concerned that moose populations in some parts of the province and the process for getting a tag and how fair it is and what not so we are hopeful that in these sessions we hear from hunters about how to make that process more fair and address some of the issues that they bring forward.”
With the Hunting industry estimated to be worth more than $430 million in the province, Stewart and Fedeli encourage hunters who did not attend the event to go to the Ontario.ca website and give their opinions too.
The initial task of the committee will be to develop recommendations on moose management from hunters and their survey, with a focus on how quotas are developed, and how tags are allocated to hunters through the draw.
