A common question from Colorado Hunters: If I hunted this year, can I take the Big Game Harvest Survey?
Answer: Not all hunters are eligible to take the Big Game Harvest Survey. Only those hunters who have been randomly selected and notified by Colorado Parks and Wildlife or its vendor, Standage Market Research, are eligible. Read on to learn why.
Every year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s customer service staff gets questions about the Big Game Harvest Survey. “Why don’t you survey everyone?” “Why didn’t I get a survey?” “How is this responsible management?” All valid concerns. So let me explain a little about the process.
Survey Basics
Each year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife randomly selects approximately 190,000 deer, elk, and pronghorn hunters to participate in its annual Big Game Harvest Survey. The survey takes approximately five minutes to complete and collects hunt and harvest information from hunters. Hunters are asked various questions that relate to where and when they hunted, if they harvested, what they harvested, their level of satisfaction with their hunt, and their sense of hunter crowding during their hunt.
How do I know if I have been selected for the survey?
If you have been randomly selected to take the survey, you will be contacted by email or live operator (not a machine) after your season closes. Please check your email spam folder, as your notification email may end up there.
Why does Colorado Parks and Wildlife use a random sampling process?
To conduct the annual Big Game Harvest Survey, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) contracts with an outside firm to collect important hunt and harvest information from hunters., Each year Colorado has over 350,000 deer, elk, and pronghorn hunters. Approximately 190,000 hunters are randomly selected to participate in the annual harvest survey, designed to estimate harvest and participation for all seasons and manners of take at the herd level. This information is then used with information collected by CPW biologists to estimate deer, elk, and pronghorn population numbers, a crucial component guiding herd management in Colorado.
IMPORTANT: If you are selected to take the survey, please complete the survey as soon as you receive a notification. It’s important to provide the most accurate information possible. With many Colorado hunters participating in more than one big game hunt, the feedback needs to be specific to the hunt for which you are being surveyed.
How does Colorado Parks and Wildlife choose the survey participants?
Survey participant selection is based on hunt or hunt code. Selection within each hunt is random. The number of hunters selected from each hunt is based on the number of licenses sold for that particular hunt. The fewer licenses sold for a hunt, the more likely it is for a hunter to be selected for the survey. For example, a hunter in a hunt (hunt code) with very few licenses available is likely to be selected to take the survey. In contrast, a hunter with a license for a hunt (hunt code) with a high number of licenses is less likely to be selected to take the survey.
5 important optional questions on the Big Game Harvest survey
At the end of the survey, hunters can choose to answer 5 additional questions. The questions at the end of the survey will collect feedback from hunters on crowding, satisfaction, and preferences for future herd management. For additional information, please see the Harvest Survey FAQ.
Written by Sherri Huwer. Sherri is a Terrestrial Data Analyst with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
3 Responses
Getting to expensive to hunt colorado.
These surveys are bogus – hunted pronghorn in 3 and 301 – what a joke – half of the land is walk in only. That would be OK, but you can’t even see antelope with a spotting scope before walking in. Do not blow your points here – my son and I both used up 13! I just filled out my survey, but no room for comment?
Its time to get real hunting results! We have to apply online, and it should be MANDATORY that everyone reports after hunt results online. This would definitely give better information at the end of the season.
I did not hunt in 2022 at all, but I did fish a couple of times.