Abstract
While the harvest success rate of bull elk in Nebraska has been relatively high in recent years, antlerless harvest success is substantially lower inhibiting the ability of wildlife managers to effectively manage population numbers. We sought to explore differences in hunter behaviour based on the type of elk being hunted as well as how specific constraints affected each type of hunter's ability to hunt and harvest elk. Decreased antlerless-elk harvest rates were likely a product of the reduced frequency in which an antlerless-elk hunter would pay for the opportunity to hunt on property containing a comparatively higher probability of harvest. Antlerless-elk hunters reported being more constrained by time, and felt more strongly that the quantity of elk on the land that they hunted affected their ability to harvest. Our results reinforce the need for wildlife managers to work closely with private landowners and focus hunting pressure on land currently restricted to elk hunting.
Highlights
Two important tenets of the North American Model of Conservation are that wildlife resources are a public trust and that democracy of hunting is standard (Geist et al 2001, Organ et al 2012)
This theory of leisure constraint negotiation has been refined through the ‘constraint-effectsmitigation’ model, which states that when confronted with a constraint, negotiation strategies will be activated in an effort to limit the negative impact of the constraint on activity participation (Hubbard and Mannell 2001, White 2008, Metcalf et al 2015, Stensland et al 2017)
Our study builds on this concept of leisure-constraints negotiation, within a framework of big game hunting dominated by a need for hunting access on private land
Summary
Two important tenets of the North American Model of Conservation are that wildlife resources are a public trust and that democracy of hunting is standard (Geist et al 2001, Organ et al 2012). Intrapersonal constraints might include internal moral conflicts with taking the life of an animal, lack of confidence or feeling unwelcome within the hunting culture Interpersonal constraints include those factors that involve other individuals such as work or family obligations as well as belonging to social circles that have no interest in hunting. Assess how hunting behavior differs between those targeting bull and those targeting antlerless elk This information will be useful for management decisions and as a case study for other wildlife management agencies developing and adjusting regulations for hunting big game populations in a hunting system dominated by private land. We predicted antlerless-elk hunters may encounter more difficulty negotiating constraints to hunting opportunity and harvest success than bull-elk hunters once a permit is acquired (Table 1). As antlerless elk permits were more attained and could be attained more frequently, we predicted that hunters seeking to harvest an antlerless member of an elk population were less likely to pursue permissions for access to private land, were less likely to be willing to pay for private-land access, and spent fewer days afield than hunters who sought to harvest an antlered animal
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