Is Mandatory Reporting Really a Better Way to Collect Harvest Data?

For decades, Montana hunters have gotten the opportunity to relive their big-game season months after it ended when contracted phone surveyors call to learn whether hunters were successful. The surveyors don’t call every Montana hunter. Instead, they phone a subset of hunters that’s large and randomized enough to be considered statistically valid. The information they glean is used by wildlife managers to estimate total harvest, key data that helps them recommend bag limits and seasons for the year ahead.

Critics of the phone survey have slammed Montana’s Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) for what they consider an antiquated system that collects dubious data, and discontent with the system escalates when big-game populations drop but hunting seasons aren’t adjusted accordingly. That very dynamic is happening now, with mule deer populations crashing in eastern Montana but season structures remaining relatively unchanged.

Earlier this year the state legislature considered a bill that would have incentivized mandatory reporting by awarding a bonus point for deer or elk if hunters reported their harvest success. Hunters who didn’t report would be fined between $5 and $50, according to the bill, which ultimately died in committee.

The issue is unlikely to go away in Montana, where hunters have promised to bring it back to the legislature or the Fish and Wildlife Commission.

“Montana has decades of crappy statistics,” says Montana hunter Phil Zebal. “[FWP] would rather keep using their algorithm that they have used forever with crappy inputs than start over from scratch. They do not know within 10,000 plus or minus how many elk are killed annually. Probably double that for deer. They have no clue on hunter days, harvest success rates or age class harvested.”

Zebal’s criticism comes despite FWP using highway game-check stations, a relatively new opt-in electronic big-game tag and the telephone survey. About half our states either employ a long-running survey like Montana’s phone calls or have voluntary reporting. The rest require mandatory harvest reporting.

ANALYZING APPROACHES

It turns out that harvest reporting, like so many other tools of wildlife management, is more complicated and nuanced than it appears.

“Harvest survey methods are seemingly under continual scrutiny and questioning by the public and elected or appointed officials in many states,” noted authors of a 2011 Wildlife Society Bulletin paper that considered various harvest reporting methods. “Some state wildlife management agencies chose to, or have been forced to, use self-reported methods to obtain harvest data as a result of such pressure.”

Retired Montana wildlife biologist Bruce Sterling notes that wildlife managers don’t need to record every animal harvested to make good management decisions.

“When I was working for FWP, the department contacted roughly 65,000 elk and 65,000 deer hunters to come up with a statistically sound mid-point for the harvest by hunting district, plus or minus 10 percent,” he says.

Critics of the phone survey don’t appreciate that human interaction enables surveyors to detect and correct incomplete or incorrect input.

“People making those calls have to extract important data from hunters and spend time with follow-up questions, because many [respondents] had no idea what hunting district they hunted in. Some didn’t know the species of deer [white-tailed or mule deer] they killed,” says Sterling. “Mandatory reporting via a phone call or mail-in card or website will contain major errors that won’t be corrected. I don’t think it’s the best way to get the best available data.”

But is randomized phone-calling the method to get the best data? As land lines are cut and most phone users migrate to cell phones, they’re increasingly unlikely to answer calls from unknown numbers. Even if surveyors leave voicemail messages, a relatively small number of respondents call back. Some biologists have suggested that the method skews the data toward an older demographic.

Then there’s the matter of cost. Authors of the Wildlife Society Bulletin compared the cost and validity of 
self-reported harvest data on its own and when it was confirmed by a follow-up phone call. Each initial contact with a hunter cost wildlife-management agencies about $0.82 per Montana elk hunter and $1.12 per Montana deer hunter. These were 2009 dollars, and with inflation and cost-of-living increases, that elk-hunter contact is closer to $1. The cost of self-reporting with follow-up sampling? The cost is about $4 per elk and deer hunter.

Given that state agencies spend license dollars on everything from habitat acquisition and improvement to wildlife management, cost is an important consideration when agencies choose harvest-survey methods.

POPULATION SIZE MATTERS

Most states require harvest reporting for trappers, mountain lion hunters, black bear hunters, and hunters of species that have relatively small, hard-to-count populations with small harvest quotas. In Montana’s unlimited bighorn sheep districts, where harvest is tightly controlled with harvest quotas, mandatory reporting is a critical tool to balance harvest with opportunity. Successful sheep hunters have 24 hours to report harvest, even if that’s via satellite phone from the backcountry. Seasons close 24 hours after harvest quotas are met.

Jeff Herbert, FWP’s former wildlife research chief, says for species that are widely distributed and abundant and managed with over-the-counter hunting licenses, population surveys are designed to detect much larger changes in population levels. At that coarse scale, wildlife managers simply don’t need to know every hunter’s harvest success to get a useful idea of population trends.

“When wildlife managers or the public speak of specific numbers in a [wildlife] population, the number is more accurately represented by a confidence interval at say 90 percent,” says Herbert. “This business is typically done at coarser levels than what most people would like to think, and sampling a portion of the wildlife population to get a strong, statistically sound harvest estimate far exceeds the information requirement of many management decisions.”

Mandatory reporting achieved only with penalties for not reporting has its own problems. Hunters who fail to report their previous season’s success are often forbidden from participating in the following season. Incentives, like offering additional opportunities for submitting harvest information, is a better approach, say sources, but may skew results from the most avid and successful hunters.

Looking ahead, the wide adoption of electronic hunting licenses may replace traditional forms of harvest reporting. By validating harvests electronically, information about species, location and date are automatically captured and can be analyzed later by wildlife managers.

The casualty of electronic reporting is the post-season phone call with a stranger who is far more interested than your buddies or your family about your hunting experiences. As we convert most communication to our phones and computers, that human interaction is as satisfying as it is priceless.

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• This article was featured in the June-July issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe

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