Wow – I ran across this interesting story over at the CouesWhitetail.com Forums. A couple of thoughts… First off, I am almost always very pro-AZGFD. I think they genuinely have hunters’ interests at heart (usually). Another thought – we’re all experts on the internet. We’re all attorneys, athletes, cops and wildlife biologists. I don’t know about you, but I am good at what I do. I know my craft. I hate it when people from outside of my career field second guess my actions. Keep that in mind when we’re passing judgement. That being said, I’m not sure what to make of this situation. ~DesertRat

You can read the entire exchange with comments here: Antelope Hunt Unit 10. Here is the statement from the original poster:

This is a true story that happened to me on September 8, 2010 at 7:15 am in Unit 10 Arizona.
I have applied for an Antelope tag in Arizona unit 10 exclusively for the last 35 years, had accumulated 22 bonus points. 2010 was the lucky year, I had finally been drawn. Scouted for 21 days, found what I considered to be the trophy that I wanted on the wall. The season began and I hunted exclusively for this buck for 5 days and had one sighting and no chance yet. On Wednesday morning I found the buck I was looking for, put myself in position to let him feed over the ridge and would have been on him ready for the kill and of all things to happen an airplane flying very low comes right over the top of me and the Antelope took off running as fast as they can. The airplane then circled the running buck and his 4 does, then chased them farther again still at full speed, circled them again, chased them farther and circled again, never to be seen again. I have no idea how far they chased them but I could no longer see the antelope and the plane was so far away I could barely hear it now. Well I am now mad, I went to the top of the ridge where I found that I got cell phone service and called Operation Game Theif. The operator on the line asked me if I could stay on hold for a minute, “sure”, when she came back on the line she informed me that there was no problem but that the Arizona Game and Fish Department was doing their annual Antelope Survey and not to worry about it. I told her that I wanted to speak to an officer asap. The officer called me only after I had called back 10 hours later and again requested to speak to an officer, he said “So I heard you got buzzed this morning”.
Long story even longer, I don’t care who it was that flew the airplain or what they were doing it was Hunter Harassment and Harassment of game. I want the appropriate people given a ticket so they can answer to a Judge. Am I wrong in this situation? Why are they doing a survey in the middle of a season? Please share your thoughts and expierences…

Of course, there were some pretty damning comments regarding AZGFD. I really need to give Brian Wakeling credit for logging on and posting an explanation from Arizona Game and Fish’s perspective:

Surveys are an essential part of what the Arizona Game and Fish Department does to index populations and make hunt recommendations in a biologically appropriate fashion. If you want to review some of the rationale and process we use, I refer you to the post that Jim Hinkle, who was the Big Game Management Supervisor at the time (he has since retired), made on this website on March 6 of this year under discussion forum/hunting and fishing forum/Coues deer hunting in Arizona/Ever wonder how AGFD does surveys.

I just learned of this post via email from Amanda. I was unable to contact anyone in the Region at this time to confirm the report, but the basic observations are plausible. This is the survey period for elk and pronghorn, the Department tries to conduct surveys during the week to avoid weekends and later in the hunt to avoid as many hunters as possible, and circling the herd is plausible because of the need to classify wildlife into age and sex categories.

Hinkle’s post describes why we need to do surveys when we do, but essentially we need to get the males and females in the visible at the same time, which means we need to survey near the rut. Buck to doe and fawn to doe ratios are critical to understanding available bucks for next year and the likely recruitment. Surveying in late winter makes it more difficult to accurately classify fawns, which are then underrepresented. Trying to avoid hunts can be very challenging. A quick look at the fall schedule in Unit 10 indicates that there is not much available time.

Pronghorn seasons
August 20 to September 2
September 3-12

Elk seasons
September 10-23
September 24-30
October 15-21
November 26 to December 2
December 3-12

Deer seasons
August 20 to September 9
October 8-17
October 22-31

Of lesser concern
Sheep season
October 1 to December 31

Bear
October 1 to December 31

Lion
August 20 to May 19

Keep in mind that we have several hundred thousand acres of pronghorn habitat to survey across the state and about 2 aircraft that we can use to conduct these surveys. It is impossible to conduct the surveys that we do without flying during some hunt. We try to avoid this to the extent possible, but sometimes we cannot avoid it. I have heard instances in which the survey may have helped some hunters and those in which it hurt them. We are not trying to create problems for hunters, but we need the data to make the hunt recommendations.

I will be out of the office tomorrow on one of our mandated furlough days and at a meeting all day on Monday, but I will try to find out some additional information about this incident.

We appreciate hearing of these incidents and we do try to minimize their occurrence. I’ll let you know what I learn.

Brian Wakeling
Game Branch Chief

So – what do you think? With all of the information at hand, what are some practical solutions? Remember – accurate population surveys are what enable us to get tags!

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