Fishing License Sales Rise as SWA Rule Begins

Front page photo from the Wet Mountain Tribune, July 16, 2020.

I was talking with a game warden from one of the mountain counties three days ago during one my "wildlife transport" runs, and I asked her how the new requirement — that you must have a hunting or fishing license to use state wildlife areas — was working out for field officers like herself.

Right now, we are just trying to educate people, she said, adding that people would get in her face and yell about "I pay taxes!"

Which  goes to show how ignorant they are. You could pay $10,000 a year in state income tax, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife would get little if any of it. (But do buy lottery tickets, because some of that money goes to state parks.)

Click to enlarge (San Bernardino
Natonal Forest on Facebook)

Meanwhile, she said, virtually every campsite in her area, developed or not, was in use. Maybe it's time for people to try this creative approach, pioneered in California--see graphic at right.

1. Not all state wildlife areas (SWAs) are owned by the state.  See the lake in the photo above? It's owned by a Cañon City-based irrigation company. I know this because I used to be a shareholder and watered our trees and gardens with that water. But I could safely bet that 95-percent of visitors (iincuding locals) think it's "public land," whereas in fact CPW leases fishing rights, including boating-while-fishing, and does permit cmaping. There are other SWAs that also are leased, although many are owned outright.

Colorado’s SWAs are acquired with license dollars from hunters and anglers – and are managed with that funding today – primarily to restore, conserve, manage and enhance wildlife and wildlife habitat.

2. CPW gets virtually no state income tax money. That is actually a good thing, because then legislators cannot raid CPW's budget to pay for their more-favored projects. Click here for pie charts of Wildlife and Parks funding.

Notice that the wildlife side is 68-percent funded by license sales and 19-percent by federal grants. ("Severance tax" refers to taxes on mining, oil, etc. not personal taxes.)

3. The federal grants are tied to hunting/fishing license sales. I have heard people say this is Donald Trump's fault. No, it is Franklin Roosevelt's "fault," since the controlling Pittman-Roberton Act was passed in 1937. The act directs money from federal taxes on firearms and ammunition down to the states with these guidelines:

States must fulfill certain requirements to use the money apportioned to them. None of the money from their hunting license sales may be used by anyone other than the states' own fish and game departments. Plans for what to do with the money must be submitted to and approved by the Secretary of the Interior. Acceptable options include research, surveys, management of wildlife and/or habitat, and acquisition or lease of land. Once a plan has been approved, the state must pay the full cost and is later reimbursed for up to 75% of that cost through the funds generated by the Pittman–Robertson Act.The 25% of the cost that the state must pay generally comes from its hunting license sales.If, for whatever reason, any of the federal money does not get spent, after two years that money is then reallocated to the Migratory Bird Conservation Act.

Some people say that Pittman-Robertson should be extended to hiking books, backcountry skis, backpacking gear, etc. An interesting thought.

Sanchez Reservoir is near the town
of San Luis in the southern San Luis Valley

4. Why is this access issue coming up now? I  will just quote a recent CPW news release:

Across the state, CPW has seen increasing use of state wildlife areas inconsistent with their purpose. A good example is camping, including people taking up temporary residence in SWAs. We’ve also seen vehicular use on big game winter ranges, pressure from hikers, maintenance issues, trash, vandalism and other uses detrimental to wildlife and wildlife-related uses.

5. So why can't I buy a "hiking pass" or a "wildlife-watching pass? See #3. A "hiking pass" would not bring in any of the federal grant money that state wildlife management depends on. CPW tried something like that in the recent past, but got into a hassle with the federal government:

Several years ago, the General Assembly voted to require all users of SWAs to purchase a state Wildlife Habitat Stamp as a way to generate conservation funding.

It failed for a couple reasons. First, only hunters or anglers complied, for the most part. Those who only hike or watch wildlife or camp didn’t bother to buy the stamp.

Second, funding for SWAs actually fell because federal officials ruled the Habitat Stamp was classified as “program income” and it ended up decreasing our federal grant money by the same amount we were able to bring in.

6. Suprise, fishing license sales are rising! According to Colorado Public Radio. "Colorado Parks and Wildlife has issued nearly 90,000 more annual fishing licenses so far this year compared to the same period in 2019." They say a lot of that is people getting outdoors during the pandemic, but also mention the new regulation. Many of these anglers are new to the sport — or at least new to it in Colorado.

The Mountain Gazette is Back (Again)

I missed out on the original 1960s Mountain Gazette — too young, but I subscribed during the M. John Fayee era (the 2000s) and still have my "When in Doubt, Go Higher" T-shirt someplace.

The last person to resurrect Mountain Gazette in 2000 after a more than 20-year hiatus was M. John Fayhee, a legendary journalist and scribe who spent 12 years at the helm of the magazine. His insightful eye reshaped Mountain Gazette, with irreverent barstool insight, an abiding appreciation of the West’s characters, an razor-sharp criticism of interlopers seeking to get rich on a town’s culture and landscapes, and a stable of the region’s top writers. His approach celebrated the artistic and literary heritage forged by its founder, Mike Moore, with long-form essays — think wandering 25,000-word explorations of Western culture, weather, and life and death in high-elevation towns — and a definitive rebuke of flashy outdoor mags heavy with gear reviews and top-10 lists.

That quote is from a Colorado Sun piece on the Mountain Gazette's third incarnation, now in the womb.

Appreciation for the Mountain Gazette never died, even when it stopped publishing. Older issues can be found in curated collections in antique stores. Lovers of the magazine collect them like precious vinyl records.

And now the journal of culture and commentary is getting a second, second chance.

Mike Rogge, a 34-year-old skier and new dad from Lake Tahoe, is breathing new life into the idled magazine, hoping to revive the glory days when Mountain Gazette harbored the stories and characters that defined high-country culture.

Rogge bought the dormant Mountain Gazette and its website in January from Summit Publishing Co., which prints the popular, free Elevation Outdoors magazine seen on racks all over Colorado.

The new plan is for a glossy, semiannual sort of "coffee table magazine," not sold on newstands, with "long-form stories, essays, and poetry capturing mountain town culture" and  "stunning, large format photography" for $60 per year. More information here. 

Clothing and accessories (merch) are already available, so if you are unsure about the magazine, you can get the bumper sticker.

Deterring Bigfoot from Your Property

I believe these people want to sell you some Big Yeti Stout.

First, the disclaimer. I am not in any way a "Bigfoot hunter." A couple of my friends have had "experiences" though. One is a longtime bowhunter, nature writer, and guide — very much not a "woo-woo" sort of person — who waited a long time to tell what he met in the San Juans. Others have "heard stuff." Here, however, I consider how people think about Bigfoot/Sasquatch/yetis.

Generally, people-of-Bigfoot fall into one of three categories:

1. Bigfoot is a primate. These are the "cryptozoologists," who think that there might be an undiscovered ape creature out there  — and not just in the Pacific Northwest.  They often refer to these and other mystery animals as "cryptids."

One of the most professional was Grover Krantz (1931–2002).  Krantz taught physical anthropology, primarily at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., which put him within easy driving time of prime Bigfoot-hunting areas, and toward the end of his teaching career he wrote a book, Big Foot Prints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch, assembling what he considered to be the best physical evidence for its existence.

Krantz's teaching career ended just as DNA evidence was becoming The Big Thing in his field, and I do not think that he ever made much use of it. The book, published in 1992, has only a brief mention of seeking DNA evidence, a method that has come a long way in thirty years.

Bigfoot runs in the family: his niece, Laura Krantz, produced a highly polished podcast called Wld Thing about her uncle, about Bigfoot hunters, and about contemporary DNA evidence.  She is a former editor and producer for National Public Radio, and it shows—this is one of the best-sounding podcasts that I ever heard, not to mention being well-paced and edited.

Typical of the "physical Bigfoot" camp is the North American Wood Ape Conservancy, a group that concentrates its efforts in southeastern Oklahoma and east Texas. They consider themselves to be a "citizen scientists," and they have already done some ancillary work on the presence of red wolves in the Ouchita Moutains of Oklahoma.

They have an occasional podcast as well, Apes Among Us. 

NAWAC members seem to run a bit younger than some groups', and they show up at their preferred site with camouflage, up-to-date optics, night-vision goggles, audio and video recorders, and other tactical gear — plus hunting rifles, because they argue that while skeptics can deny photos, etc., no one will deny a dead "ape" in the truck. Still, after a number of years of field work, sightings, and intriguing experiences, apparently no one has pulled a trigger.

2. Bigfoot is "interdimensional." Back when I was a young newspaper reporter, I interviewed a resident of Green Mountain Falls, Colo., named Dan Masias, who came from a restaurant-owning family in the Colorado Springs area, and who claimed to have seen two upright hairy "creatures" walk past his house in March 1989 after having earlier seen tracks in the snow.

A facetious sign on the Pike's Peak Highway, more or less
uphill from Green Mountain Falls, which is down to the right.

He had photos of the tracks (some with three toes—apparently that happens) displayed in his home. After the story appeared in the paper, I was contacted by people wanting to tell me about how Bigfoot sightings were associated with UFO sightings. I was astonished, because I had thought of them as two different areas of weirdness. Not so.

It could be that if we follow the terminology of NASA astrophysicist/UFO writer/West Coast astrophysicist Jacques Vallée, eveything is part of "The Phenomenon" — and everything was here all along.

So if you can take that one big leap — and it is a very big leap — then all the other questions fall away.

Grover Krantz, for example, thought that the Pacific NW Sasquatch occupied a similar ecological niche to a black bear in the cold rain forest. But what would a Rocky Mountain Sasquatch do in the winter? Hibernate? Live in a cave? Or why do the tracks stop and start? Well, says the second group, they (like fairies, gnomes, "aliens," etc.) are here — and then they are not-here. Poof!

I bought this shirt in 2019 at the State Forest State Park
visitor center — not the only Bigfoot-themed item on sale.

3. Bigfoot is the symbol of wildness.  

It's not too late: you can still register for for "Yeti Fest" in North Park, Colorado, sponsored by Never Summer Nordic, a concessionaire at State Forest State Park — which apparently has adopted Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch as an unofficial emblem. Enjoy live music, a Yeti-call contest, and a Yeti hunt with real guides — unless it has been canceled due to Covid 19. Maybe it has been. Better luck next year!

What I think is going on here though is not a hardcore endorsement of Position #1 or Position #2 but a celebration of the Colorado outdoors and the spirit of wildness. Bigfoot may be the North American equivalent of the revived Green Man symbol, originally found throughout Britain on medieval churches.

So what about Bigfoot Deterrence? You Promised Us!

Before it petered out, I followed the blog of a Colorado-based group, Sasquatch Investigations of the Rockies. (Related: It's not too late to sign up for this month's "Colorado Bigfoot Expedition" with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization - unless that gets cancelled too.) The SIR folks thought that tree trunks stacked certain ways were left by Bigfoot, which reminded me of the "Ute Prayer Tree" fakelore.

They also used to leave spreads of food out for the big guy, on flat boulders and such. I am sure that somebody enjoyed them. I used to wonder, though, why they did not place scout cameras to find out just who came. Maybe it was more fun to speculate.

Then I was listening to one of Timothy Renner's Strange Familiars podcasts — he is a Pennsylvania musician who has found a new niche as a paranomal investigation podcaster and author. The podcasts are very low-key and often  feature Tim and a friend(s) who are hiking (sometimes at night), while talking about local history, camping, weird tales, strange experiences in the woods, and such, interspersed with "Did you hear that?" "It sounds like it was coming from across the creek."

Bigfoot deterrent?

In one of their Michaux State Forest episodes, the question of scout cameras came up, and the group agreed that Bigfoot avoids them. No one ever gets Bigfoot photos on a scout camera, they said. (These Washington state highway camera photos seemed to say otherwise but have been debunked.)

So there you have it. Put up the scout cameras and Bigfoot will stay away.

Postscript: Cameras and other large critters.

I  lost a scout camera to an angry black bear back in 2010, but the photos were interesting.

Sooyang Park, an amazingly dedicated South Korean wildlife photographer, has done a lot of work in the Russian Far East and authored Great Soul of Siberia: Passion, Obsession, and One Man's Quest for the World's Most Elusive Tiger. He says that the Siberian tigers he photographs (spending weeks in a little blind covered in dirt and timber) seek out and destroy cameras and audio recorders — he thinks  that they smell the plastic cases.

On the other hand, the Wild Cats Conservation Alliance (a good group, please donate) sprinkles its social media feeds with photos of leopards and sometimes tigers that appear to be at least partially from game cameras.