Licence raffles give hunters a chance to help conservation efforts

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on July 1, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Alberta hunters have a chance to aid provincial conservation efforts and win a chance to go on a special hunt.

Raffle tickets are now being sold for the Minister’s Special Licence Hunt. The raffle opened May 30 and runs to Aug. 10. Draw date is Aug. 11.

For a $20 ticket, licenced hunters will get a chance to win a licence to hunt one of six species of game in Alberta. MSLs are valid from Sept. 1 until Aug. 31, 2024 and are valid in any wildlife management unit where a specified species is identified in the 2023 Alberta Guide to Hunting Regulations. Each species has its own specific raffle hunters can enter.

Up for grabs this year are two antlered moose, two pronghorns, one bighorn sheep, one wild turkey, one antlered elk and one antlered mule deer.

Ticket buyers and MSL winners must be at least 18 years old, an Alberta resident, have a valid WIN card and be eligible to hunt in Alberta. Tickets are non-transferrable.

The MSL raffle has been staged since 1995 and more than $9 million has been raised for conservation efforts in the province. Species are chosen based upon their abundance.

Todd Zimmerling, president and CEO of the Alberta Conservation Association, said in a phone interview this week that 60 per cent of funds raised go directly to conservation efforts of specific species while the other 40 per cent can be utilized in other areas.

The ACA is a non-profit association “that conserves, protects, and enhances fish and wildlife populations and their habitats for Albertans to enjoy, value, and use,” says the organization.

“The money will be collected and we’re going to set up a public advisory committee so we will get stakeholder groups to sit down and basically decide how the money will be spent,” said Zimmerling.

“There are some rules around it in that each of the species – this year we’ve got the sheep, the turkey, the elk, the mule deer, the moose and the pronghorn – 60 per cent of the money raised off each of the individual raffles has to go to something related to those species specifically. The other 40 per cent could be used on other projects unrelated to those specific species.

In the past, the types of things that have been looked at for pronghorn for instance include a project to remove barbed fire fence in southern Alberta to improve passage of the animals, he said.

Projects looking at the movement of pronghorns have also been supported. Habitat for mule deer and elk are other projects that have been done such as by planting or trying to maintain a riparian area, he said.

“A range of habitat related projects, migration improvement projects and in some cases basic research projects,” Zimmerling added. Funds could also be used to address an outbreak of Movi – Mycoplasma ovipneumonia – among bighorn sheep from occurring. It can be passed from farm sheep to wild sheep and can be deadly in the wild population.

“You get outbreaks every once in a while – we haven’t had one for a long time and we just had one this year” so funds could go towards finding ways of preventing the disease spreading from to wild populations, he said.

Zimmerling doesn’t have any concerns about the sustainability of any of the species involved in the raffle.

Wild turkeys can be found in the southwest corner of Alberta, in the Crowsnest Pass and along the Eastern Slopes.

“The ACA has actually started a program where we’re trying to enhance those populations so we’ve been working with the B.C. government last year to actually trans-locate turkeys from B.C. into Alberta. B.C. had surplus turkeys that they wanted to get rid of and we said we would take those and help to expand that range in Alberta,” said Zimmerling, a professional biologist who is based out of Sherwood Park.

“The great benefit of winning this raffle and having this particular licence you can hunt in any of the Wildlife Management Units where there is a legal hunting season. You can’t go into a park where there wouldn’t normally be a hunting season but if there is a hunting season in the WMU you can hunt in the WMU.”

The licence is valid for 12 months for hunters to pursue their prey.

For some species, the season can be extended but Zimmerling said he doesn’t know many people who might try to hunt moose in May but he could see people going for sheep a little further into winter or getting a head start in August.

“The animals might be in a slightly different location that they might normally be. Something like turkey, technically you could hunt the turkey any time of year. In B.C., they have both a spring and a fall hunt for turkey so you could get out there and hunt your turkey” outside the normal seasons, he said.

“This is helping conservation in the province. If you win it that’s a bonus. If you don’t well you’ve donated to a good cause that will get used for a wide range of conservation activities that should benefit you as a hunter, outdoors person.”

Traditionally, only sheep, elk and mule deer licences were raffled but in 2022 the other three species were added, Zimmerling said.

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