I must agree with you, if there was ever a Ministry that needs to be dismantled and abolished – Its the MNR!
I had some discussing with our local Biologist and Thunder Bay’s Higher ups over the moose tags 2-3 yrs ago.
I’ll give you some history as to how we came to this.
Roughly 5 yrs ago, we had A (one) public meeting here in Geraldton, where the MNR Biologist was asking the local hunters for advice and ideas on how they could improve the herd size, should we reduce the season?, should we introduce a calf draw?, should we reduce the tag allocations?
Should we make party applications mandatory? Should we make tag holders mandatory hunters (can’t transfer the tags to other party members)…
The following year, came the Caribou incentive, to try to introduce the Caribou down to North Bay? As apparently they were in the 1840’s???
So the MNR tried to eradicate the moose here in the WMU 19 & 21A, by giving out an enormous amount of tags.
When I questioned the Biologist on this brainwave tactic, I asked him why we needed to lower the moose herds? His reply was, “if we lower the moose numbers, then the wolf numbers will also go down, which are the predators of the Caribou” ( apparently nothing else will eat a caribou? Bears don’t care for Caribou meat apparently?).
As well one must assume that wolves will not eat anything else but Moose and Caribou? (hint wolves are a CANIVOR, they will eat anything with a heartbeat or pulse!).
When I inquired on the population status of Moose, Caribou and Wolves back in the 1840’s, no one could give me an answer, because they did not have the data?
And they openly admitted that this exercise was a “roll of the dice”, and its a 20 -25 yrs experiment?
I mentioned to them, first your caved in to tree huggers with the Spring bear hunt cancellation, the outfitters much needed money maker to help them make it to the fishing season, not to mention a good managing tool for the Bear population. Now your slowly taking away the moose hunt, which will undoubtedly lower the number of tags allocated to them. So I asked, then you will introduce a Caribou season for the locals and outfitters right – “NO you will never see a Caribou season in Ontario!” was the reply.
(I find it funny that nobody says anything about the Deer tag allocations? A hunter can only have one Buck tag, but up to 6 Doe tags? I guess Bambi isn’t as cute as a bear cub?)
Now skip to the present 2014, and now they are saying the herd has declined in numbers?
If this isn’t enough proof that this MNR is Mis-managing our natural resources, I don’t know what is?
They have introduced LCC’s (local Citizen’s Committees) across the Province, in order to give shareholders a voice at the round table. This is a tactic that is used by this Ministry and others are adopting it as well. All they have to do is give the Public shareholders an opportunity to give them an opinion or have discussion on a certain topic, they do not have to listen, take direction from such discussions, or take any kind of actions with regards to discussions even if the overall census is to do so, with a very high %.
They only need to give you the opportunity to voice your concerns, and they are good to go.
I agree with you Paul, its the good ol’boys retirement club, get in, and find a job for your family members – and enjoy life at the taxpayers expense.
Like I have always stated, it does not matter which Gov’t body you are dealing with, Municipal, Prov, or Fed – you are dealing with Organized Crime in the highest degree.
All one has to do is look at the Gov’ts scandals on the News.
Andre Blanchard.
Greenstone, Ontario.
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This is about correct for the OMNR. They are corrupt and nobody is even trying to fix this. I have been arguing with the OMNR and other government agencies about the moose hunt and it seems the only way we can fix this tag issue is through a law suit at this point we need people to start getting together and go after them.
Another key note I wanted to pass onto you, but forgot. On the PLA issue. In Ontario if you want to hunt or fish, you must first buy an outdoors card! This was supposed to give you access to all of Ontario to enjoy!
But we both know that its just to give the MNR additional capital to protect the American Outfitters from Canadians who want to enjoy their own resources.
Prisoners within our own borders, patrolled by our own CO’s.
Now you can understand why I say we need a whole new overhaul of our political parties. The North with a population of roughly 1 Million, is up against the South with a population of over 9 Million, so rules are done in the South and brought and enforced in the North. And yet no one wants to mention separating this Province in half? Whats wrong with North & South Carolina, North & South Dakota?
Andre.
What does LCC mean?
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Doug, The LCC stands for Local Citizens Committee. The MNR appoints the members supposedly to represent each interest area. Fur Trappers, tourism agencies, outfitters, air fly-in services, logging companies, bicycle clubs, nature trail walkers, tree-huggers ect. The Sault group has no snowmachine/atv reps or Joe Blow hunter/fishermen to protect our interests that I know of.
We have 2 allies from this group that I would say represent the actual public. Unfortunately the real focus is to divert attention from the MNR so they say most policies come from this group. The group is hand picked by the MNR to do there bidding. I went to observe two meetings 2 years ago and most reps kept asking who I was. Eerie feeling.
I don’t know if the Espanola area has a group. The Sault chapter is in the midst of re-furbishing their web-site so it is hard to find who is on their list and what interest groups they serve..
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I should have known that but it was from a long time ago. My son’s father in law was the logging representative for our area. Our hunting party, moose hunted an area where moose yarded for the winter. The MNR said that the area had to be logged and I raised all kinds of shit trying to stop the logging or at least to have the area gated for a long time after to prevent the whole herd from being exterminated (especially by the natives who are not controlled by MNR).
My son’s father in law gave me several suggestions as did my next door neighbour who was Eacom’s and before that Domtar’s forestry advisor on the committee. Both told me to NOT mention the word native in any discussion with MNR or Domtar, that I would immediately lose all credibility and would be ignored.
To make a long story short, the MNR said that the area had to be logged and our MNR moose biologist said moose don’t yard. The last year that we hunted there (the year before it was logged) we saw 5 bulls opening day , 4 bulls the second day and 5 bulls the third day, no bull tag. Obviously some could have been the same ones as before.
Last year or the year before two of our party went back looking for moose and in four days the didn’t even find a fresh track. The natives had cleaned out the whole herd in five years. I am saying natives because they are allowed in when logging is going on but normal hunters aren’t.
I am not a racist, in fact I have my Metis card, but obviously our MNR has no clue in how to manage a moose herd and they wonder why they have to keep cutting back on the moose tags. Pretty bad when our biologist says “moose don’t yard” when that is how they do their aerial surveys by looking for the moose tracks in the snow, looking for congregations of moose.
Doug
Hello Doug we had the same issue in WMU 28 in Wilkie Township. The Natives came in and shot around 50 moose from the end of August until the beginning of October. I do not agree with this any longer as they were given that right to keep with the old ways will the last time I checked the Natives did not have firearms in the old days. As well they also use the reason that it is for sustenance hunting if that was true why is the OMNR and the OPP not going after the natives who are selling the moose they hunted. That is still illegal in Ontario but they won’t instead just punish the hunters. I think a new law should be passed that the Natives can still hunt for moose but every moose shot should be recorded to the OMNR on sex, type, date taken and quantity so we can have a proper moose census and for the OMNR to finally have to show that Native Hunting practices are destroying the Populations not just us law full hunters.
A few years ago my wife was lucky to be drawn for a bull tag in unit 38 after waitting years we were excited to get out there.This was our trapline we were going to hunt on.When we arrived at a cut area there was a sign which read, NO moose hunting for the first 2 weeks of the season due to tourism.What happened next I will leave to your imagination .Just another kick in the ———by M.N.R
I have finally had contact with the Ontario Ombudsman about the Moose tag allocation issues for the 2014 Hunt.
They were actually very helpful and courteous unlike the MNR which does not want to seem to talk to me. So I was told by the Ombudsman’s Office to re-send another letter being very specific about what we would like to ask the OMNR.
I would like you if possible to please ask the rest of the members what questions they would like me to include with the letter. I have a good idea of what needs to be asked but I am hoping more people will have more specific questions. As well one of the MPP’s John Vanthof has brought up the miss-management of the moose tag system to David Orazietti who basically refused to answer which is the Norm.
I also have some questions to the OFAH to see if I can get some info from them.
I was asked to fill a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request to the OMNR which the cost of the filling fee isn’t the issue what scares me is the cost of getting the info from them as they can charge what ever they want for the info and unfortunately I do not have that much funding at this time to pay large amounts for information that should be public information. The info I am requesting is all the fly over Data for all the WMU affected by tag reductions and some that were not.
The reason why this is important is to show if the MNR is actually following it’s own guide on Moose surveys and I am sure we will find they are not.
The funny part is the MNR reduced the tags in my area WMU 28 to 30 tags and I just received confirmation from some friends of mine that my camp is over run with moose. Actually the exact comment was, “Hey Zeke we will need to put up a Moose crossing sign by your camp because I almost hit a moose with my side by side. There are so many moose tracks that it looks closer to a cow pasture then a moose camp”.
Last year when I went up we had a Cow tag and we seen six moose the first 3 days (obviously we got our moose) we were not even trying that hard so I know there is something desperately wrong with the MNR’s information but I digress.
I guess we should also make sure to tell everyone I am from the Sarnia area and I am fighting like hell to get the OMNR to be accountable and to not forget that everyone form down south are a bunch yuppie A holes. Don’t get me wrong a lot of us are but I am not one of them. (It also helps I went to School in Sudbury and I use to work for a Bear Outfitter in Chapleau) What we need to do is try to band together much better then we are and not worry about the Geological surroundings in which we in-habit.
As well I found out the OMNR let some civilians fly with them on the surveys they were from a group called Team NOSA. I sent them an e-mail asking for help and have not received a response so if any members are also members of Team NOSA getting me some information would be wonderful.
If anyone has any direct questions for me and they would not like to post them on the ONTora website they can contact me directly at ezekielmarshall@gmail.com
I was also informed by the Ombudsman office that not to expect much of a reply until after the Elections on June 12.
Thank you very much for the help and the great work you folks do.
Zeke Marshall
I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the Ombudsman, They will pretend they are interested in what you are saying, get you to waste a bunch of time sending information to them and eventually they will talk to someone at the MNR and will take what they tell them as truth.
Even if you can prove what the MNR told them were lies, they don’t seem to care and then they are done with you…
Hopefully I am wrong but I have my doubts.
Dan Neilson