Originally Posted By: Carcassman
For better or for worse, recreational fishing and hunting are managed based on "opportunity". Consistently, users say that their primary reason for going out is to be outdoors, with friends, etc. When surveyed, harvest is always down the list.

The measure that is always used for the value of rec use is cost per trip. "I spent $X to fish salmon today." That is the measure.

Rec use was never designed as subsistence; the taking home of harvest id the cherry on the sundae. Many of the limits, especially gamefish possession limits, were designed to "spread" the harvest over more license holders.

Now, if we want to change that then we need to really get organized and lobby. Perhaps a license comes with a money-back guarantee that you will harvest 10 salmon, 1 halibut, 15 crab, and so on. I think that a lot of folks do look at hunting and fishing as major meat source. This is not the way management has worked and if we want to change that there is a ton of work to do.



I recall when the WDG had game management units on the Canal side of the Olympics for which there was a season for mountain goats for which you had to enter for a tag drawing - and you could only submit for one unit. Turns out there were no goats in some of those units and they knew it. So why dredge up that very old abuse? Because it goes to the issue of defining opportunity.

Sure, harvest is down the list but how many of those hunters and fishers would be out there on a given day if there was no reasonable opportunity for harvest? (Or, how many of the folks who tossed their permit app into one of those barren units would have done so had they KNOWN there were no goats there??).

So, while I generally concur with you I also believe that the appropriate terminology in discussing the recreational side is "reasonable opportunity."
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