As changes to the outdoor landscape go, the landowner voucher proposal to be delivered Thursday to the Colorado Wildlife Commission barely qualifies as a wrinkle.
A few family-only antelope licenses on the plains. Ten additional elk tags, half for landowners, half for the public, in Game Management Unit 10 on the Western Slope. Scarcely the sort of earth-rattling stuff sportsmen, landowners and assorted committees have been haranguing over for months.
Those are the suggestions for pilot programs – we hesitate to call them compromise – the Division of Wildlife will put forth at 1:35 p.m. at the Greeley Best Western Regency, 701 Eighth St.
After months of hair-pulling, during which landowner groups demanded quantum increases in the existing 15 percent allotment of vouchers given for the most desirable deer, elk and pronghorn lands, these alterations scarcely seem worth the trouble.
But they do represent an easing, however minor, of the loggerheads between those who want a greater percentage of prime licenses for commercial purposes and public hunters who want to give them less or none at all.
DOW galloped the proposals briskly past separate landowner and sportsmen groups in recent days. Everyone saluted.
The basic outline comes in two parts:
* An allotment of an additional 10 percent of either-sex pronghorn tags east of Interstate 25 to landowners and their immediate families. These may be used only on private land. A landowner must hold 960 acres to be eligible for one tag. Those with acreage of 5,000 or more are eligible for two applications. These will be dispersed through a separate computer lottery.
During the ongoing debate over landowner vouchers, public hunters generally approved giving landowners and their families more latitude on their own property.
* A unique apportionment of 10 additional either-sex elk licenses in Unit 10, generally north of Rangely. Landowners who hold at least 640 acres are eligible to bid for five private land-only tags, provided they keep elk on their property from the start of archery season until the end of rifle season.
Those who are successful in this separate draw will be required to allow five public hunters on their land without limitation.
Both programs extended through 2008, with renewal pending review. Legislative approval isn’t required.
The commission also will consider two related issues. One would require landowners who transfer vouchers under the current 15 percent allotment to allow the hunter recipient access to his own property.
Another involves a secondary thrust to investigate another GMU, probably in southwestern Colorado, as a 2007-08 pilot for a similar license-added program that might maximize landowner and public opportunity on private land.
