Changes in Colorado's Harvest Statistics Reporting for 2025

[Winchester]

FYI everyone, in case you haven't noticed it yet, Colorado changed how they are reporting Harvest Statistics this year.

In previous years harvest stats were listed by individual hunt unit. So, even if a huntcode contained a group of GMUs hunters could still use the individual hunt unit listings to find the harvest stats for each GMU within that huntcode.

However; the 2025 Harvest Stats are only listed by huntcode, not individual hunt units. Therefore, if a huntcode containes a group of GMUs they are now all listed with the same harvest stat, which is an average of the entire group. The fidelity of the individual GMUs within the huntcode are lost.

This change has the biggest impact on Over-the-Counter (OTC) hunts.
For Example: the 90+ different OTC Bull Elk Rifle Units that fall under the single huntcodes EM000U2R and EM000U3R are all now averaged into a single 2025 harvest statistic for that one Huntcode!!
Just one average harvest stat for all those units.
This is horribly misleading. Individual units that were previously reported as having extremely low harvest success or extremely high are all now just averaged into a single number. This makes the OTC harvest stats petty much useless.

 

[mallardsx2]

It “sells” more useless tags to gullible people who think they have a decent chance of filling a tag in an area void of animals on public land. It’s fits with their agenda.

 

[RICMIC]

The harvest stats in Colorado have always been of little value. I had looked up the stats for the area that we applied for MZL deer this year, and the "success" rate was based on less than a 1% response. My home state of Minnesota has screwed up a lot of things over the last few decades, but the DNR does a good job on monitoring the deer numbers and harvest rates. If you kill a deer on your license you just call in to report it, and an automated response gives you a number to write down on your license. There was some bitching when this system was set up, but it was implemented without any real issues that I am aware of. You no longer even have to bring the deer in to a "harvest station" like was done in the past.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

I too have little trust in the Colorado harvest numbers. All you have to do is have a little memory lapse when you get the call.