I live in New Mexico, we give out 6% in an outfitter pool and 4% in a non-resident non outfitter pool. The other 90% goes to residents.
Public land is a matter of opinion, this has been debated by everyone under the sun and federal laws says that wildlife is owned by the state. You can complain about the small amount of non-resident tags if you like, but it won't change anything. The state owns wildlife, if you want a bigger piece of the pie move to Wyoming.
I have points in Wyoming as well, not as many as you do but I have been using mine along the way.
Points do not equal a shared ownership of wildlife. You bought points in hopes that at some time in the future the points would equal a tag. The points you bought are kind of like being the 30th person down in a pyramid scheme especially for sheep and moose. Due to point creep you will be lucky if your 19 points equal a tag in the next 5 years if ever. The backlog of sheep hunters continues. This year you have about a .25% chance of drawing a tag in 8, 5, 4, 3 and 2 not in any particular order. Every year more people who have been sitting on the sidelines and not applying jump in and insure that point creep pushes you down 2-3 points.
This happened to be in a unit I used to hunt antelope in as a resident. It used to take 5 non-resident points. Then last year it took 7. I had 7, but I was one of 5 people that didn't draw a tag.
If you are sitting on 19 moose points there are multiple places you could have drawn this year.
Wyoming doesn't owe us anything we don't live there or pay taxes, and the code of federal regulations outlines that states control 100% of all non-migratory wildlife. So we get what we get.
Besides as much as I hate to see the rising cost of licenses and the decrease in quotas, if I lived in Wyoming I would want more for residents. Just like I am sure if you had a natural resource where you lived you would want it aimed at residents.
Here in New Mexico these idiot residents are screaming for a points system. Just look at the problem is causes in Colorado and Wyoming.
I couldn’t disagree with your last paragraph more strongly. Colorado has the best draw system of any western state. In 98% of our elk, deer and pronghorn units we can fully and easily predict the draw. Hunters and outfitters can easily book hunts with the required amount of points and both know that the trip is happening. Only a few of our elk units such as units 2, 10, 201, 76 and 61 have an October 1st rifle bull hunt and so few tags that the points go up and up. These units should be thought of as sheep-type odds of drawing and people who complain about those few hunts should not be allowed to change the rest of our draw system that works great throughout the rest of the state and is FULLY predictable.
As for our CO sheep, goat and moose draw system, I was one of 20 stakeholders that designed it after evaluating all the draws of all the other western states. We had meetings around the state and had to come up with a consensus 20-0 vote to make a recommendation to the Wildlife Commission. Our recommendation passed the Commission 9-0. Our weighted system allows a newer applicant to have a chance to draw starting in the 4th year of applying after accumulating 3 points. This gives younger and newer applicants a chance but makes them pay their dues for at least 3 years before they have a chance at drawing a tag that someone else has waited on for many more years. In years 4 and onwards, applicants receive a weighted point instead of a true preference point which helps but still doesn’t guarantee a tag. It does reward the applicants with most years of applying and gives them an advantage over applicants with less time in the system but everyone after 3 years has a weighted chance. Every applicant receives a 6-digit random number. What you need to draw is a really low random number. This number changes every year. Your random number is then divided by your weighted points plus 1. So if you have 12 weighted points, you random number is divided by 13. Then these new numbers are sorted from lowest to highest. The first tag is awarded to the applicant with the lowest number and so forth until the tags are gone. This system is way more fair than a completely random system like the one in NM where someone can draw the first year or multiple times in their lifetime while others NEVER draw. (We evaluated the data and this does happen).
The draw is really easy to complain about because the amount of tags are so limited that you cannot satisfy the demand no matter what you do. People complain no matter what. However, in Colorado, our sheep, moose and goat draw system is the most fair when you evaluate all points of view. Younger people have a chance but not as good a chance as long term applicants. What more can you do? Running a true preference points system for severely limited sheep, goat and moose tags would mean that unless you applied in the first year of the system, you would NEVER draw. We didn’t want that but we did want to reward the most loyal long term applicants with a better chance to draw. The only other really fair system out there is in Nevada where all applicants have a chance but points are squared, giving loyal applicants more chances.
Some people want a totally random draw like NM so they think they have a chance every year. Actually this is the least fair system.