Smarting up

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jul 13, 2008

Kansas deer hunting is cherished by many. The tradition started in 1965 with Kansas' first modern day deer hunting season. Over the last four decades changes have been made virtually every year in an attempt to increase deer hunting opportunities or accommodate special interest groups and others.

As a result, the deer permitting process, regulations, state statutes (Kansas law) and seasons have become increasingly difficult to interpret. In an effort to simplify Kansas deer hunting, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) recently undertook the effort of creating more user-friendly deer hunting seasons and regulations.

"It really started when the 2005 House Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Committee of the Kansas Legislature asked the agency to look at our deer-related statutes and bring recommendations back the following session on ways to condense and simplify those statutes," said KDWP's Mike Miller.

Miller was assigned the monumental task of chairing a 10-member task force of KDWP personnel to address the legislature's request. Most members had more than 20 years service with the KDWP, were deer hunters and had a firm grasp on the deer hunting mood of their constituents. The group would meet regularly initially and quickly realized the system had become increasingly complex.

"As our deer tradition grew and specialty groups wanted special seasons and special equipment restrictions and as the resource grew and the opportunities became more available, we got into this entire permitting process," Miller said. "One of the analogies was we started out with a one room house and kept adding rooms and eventually created a difficult maze of regulations."

More changes were implemented in the 1990s as deer populations in some parts of Kansas got a black eye.

"Residents of Kansas thought we had too many deer as deer/ vehicle accident numbers increased and we had lots of deer depredation complaints from landowners with crop damage. Management shifted from protecting a limited resource to controlling a growing population," Miller said. "Not only were we trying to make adjustments through the regulatory process but we were getting statutory changes as well and it almost became impossible to keep up with as it changed so much from one year to the next."

Miller admits hunters were confused as well as many department personnel with the complexity of changes. The deer task force came out with a set of draft recommendations in 2006 and presented those to the legislature.

"But we asked them to give us another year to collect public input because there were so many stakeholders that could be affected by these changes and they agreed," Miller said. "During that extra year we went to the public through our commission meetings, our KDWP blog, direct mail surveys, e-mail comments and then in August 2006 we held 14 public meetings around the state to go over the draft recommendations and receive input from hunters, landowners and anyone else that desired to provide input."

Some common concerns were voiced according to Miller and he understood.

"Nobody really liked the transferable permit system we had," Miller said. "Resident hunters didn't like that transferable permit and they also resented nonresident hunters because they feared losing their hunting areas to leasing."

Miller admits surveys have shown the income level of nonresident hunters was higher than the average resident hunter. And when nonresidents come to Kansas they are willing to pay large sums of money to hunt Kansas.

"So it's not a perceived threat, but a real threat," Miller said. "And there was a lot of resentment towards outfitters and there was quite a bit of division at all the meetings among distinctive groups."

And he added landowners now look at deer hunting differently. Throw them into the mix of vested interest groups and it becomes increasingly difficult to please all with an interest or stake in a natural resource actually owned by the people of Kansas.

"I think that's one of the problems we have in managing our resource now," Miller said. "There are so many distinctive groups like bow hunters, rifle hunters, landowners and outfitters and there wasn't ever a meeting where we had just "deer" hunters and they were all divided into specialized groups and they each want something different."

The KDWP deer task force tried to incorporate the common concerns knowing they couldn't make everyone happy. With those comments in mind the deer task force went back to the drawing board to change the recommendations to reflect as many interest requests as possible while still maintaining control of the deer population.

"Demand for nonresident permits has remained stable, and we wanted to get away from the rare, highly sought-after permit that justified the transferable permit system," Miller said. "We then took those changes to the legislature in 2007 and were successful in getting those statutes changed which gave us the ability to go through the regulatory process and make changes."