Interesting guide restrictions on the Gila

From the Silver City Daily Press on 9-13:
Gila National Forest employee Harley Allsup was on hand for presentations to inform commissioners of Forest Service plans to place a moratorium on new hunting and guiding permits for the Gila, aiming to reduce their number of service days from 11,000 to 7,000 through attrition. He said that 105 of New Mexico's 278 outfitters are in the Gila, making for a crowded hunting experience.
"The market's flooded with people out there, there's guide on top of guide," Allsup said. "Around every corner [during] hunting season, it is an interstate freeway out there with people with guides."
He described lines of ATVs passing each other scouting for their outfits and different camps setting up around the same water hole.
Allsup emphasized that the goal is to preserve the remote nature of the Gila that makes it a good place to hunt. He also admitted that current guides' support for a moratorium on future competition was biased by their business interests — but he also said they were being unfairly overwhelmed by guides overflowing from other areas where they are already restricted.
"We get people from Colorado, from Arizona, from northern New Mexico now that they're forced out and got a moratorium," Allsup said. "So they come down here to hunt, to do that. And quite frankly, in some ways, it [takes] business away, maybe, for your local outfitter guides."

It sounds like the Gila turned into rush hour with camo instead of cars. If I wanted that many folks elbow to elbow, I’d just hit Walmart on a Saturday morning.

That's a tough situation.. protecting the wilderness experience while locals lose income opportunities. Do you think reducing permits will actually improve hunting quality, or just create more competition for fewer spots?

If it succeeds in reducing actual hunter traffic on the Gila, it should improve the perceived quality of the hunt to some degree. As to the competition for guide licenses, it's a cost of doing business and not my worry as a member of the forest- and wilderness-using public.