The Ugly Truth About Colorado’s Success Rates
Draw results are a beautiful thing. You can see exactly how many hunters applied and exactly how many tags were issued. It’s a simple, hard science that produces numbers we can trust. Projecting these results to the current year’s estimated draw odds is less scientific, but you can’t blame game departments for unexpected changes in hunter trends.
So what’s the deal with success rates? Surely with every hunter being given a specific tag number, game departments can determine precisely who was and was not successful. After all, it’s not a difficult process. In Virginian and most Eastern states, we’re well-acquainted with tagging every deer, bear, turkey, and bobcat. It turns out that I’ve taken this process for granted. Many Western states, and Colorado in particular, flat out make up their success rates.
Sam’s leftover tag bull which we voluntarily reported
Yes, you read that right. Published success rates are hogwash. Game departments have just one wobbly leg to stand on - they request that hunters report their harvest through a survey. The published success rate is simply the rate of those who respond, regardless of how small a sample group that ends up being, extrapolated to the entire group.
This is how it would play out. Say 100 tags were issued and only 10 hunters responded. Of those, 5 were successful, and 5 were not. Well, good ‘ol Colorado would proudly post a success rate of 50%! They claim to adjust for possible response bias, but as far as I’m aware there is no “insufficient data” warning for low response rates. And if they do publish the response rate, it’s buried so deeply that most hunters won’t see the red flag.
I was completely unaware of this fact until we dropped off Sam’s elk at the taxidermist. I started to pull out all the green licenses and whatnot when he stops me. “Oh I don’t need any of that.” He then rips the tag off the rack. “You can keep this too.” Whereas Virginia requires every bear hunter to sent off a tooth, we voluntarily sent off an elk tooth to learn the age. And that was it. The whole process. Apparently, all those numbers and licenses are just to make sure they get their pound of flesh from hunters. The check cleared, so cares about the actual herd?
I’m sure Colorado’s pollsters feel very confident that the published rates are within some margin of error, but I don’t share their confidence. Yes, some successful hunters will be incentivized to keep their mouths shut to protect their honey holes. That’s exactly why Surry County, VA does not pop up on the Boone & Crockett map despite personal knowledge of several genuine booners killed there each year. But by and large, a successful hunter is much more likely to submit a survey than an unsuccessful one, thereby skewing the data.
As it stands, I’m left with the ugly truth that Colorado actively wants misleading data so that more nonresidents will come out and try their luck. What do they care if some strapped-for-cash guy from the East Coast, relying on their published rates, spends $1,000 on his license and takes a week’s vacation time to go on a glorified nature walk? “That’s why it’s called hunting and not killing.” If he doesn’t like it, he can stick to what’s available back home.
I’d like to think I’m wrong about this. If I have misstated anything, please reach out so I can post a retraction and restore my faith in the Western model of game management. Otherwise, I’m left with too many reservations to build an entire hunt around useless success rates. As one local put it, “You came all the way from Virginia for this? Why?”
