For decades, the Montana Wildlife Federation has been a leading voice for protecting and enhancing our public wildlife, lands, and access at the Montana Legislature. Your feedback will help us ensure that we continue to improve upon our efforts to protect and enhance issues that affect wildlife, habitat, and access for sportswomen and sportsmen, and recreationists.
Gov. Gianforte signed HB 637 today, a bill that was amended in the final days of the Legislative session to include unlimited outfitter-sponsored nonresident big game licenses for this year and permanently skews the preference point system.
This bill was so riddled with problems to begin with, and was put forward by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It included spending $1 million on pheasant stocking, removing a 24-hour waiting period for black bear and mountain lions, and removing a required hound handler license for nonresident landowners.
But in the second to last day of the session, bill sponsor Rep. Seth Berglee, R-Joliet, brought an amendment requested by outfitters that completely changed the nature of the bill. It was clearly a special interest exerting influence over the allocation of nonresident licenses to benefit their businesses, a concept that had been rejected earlier in the session after strong opposition from public hunters. That came forward in SB 143, sponsored by Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, which had allocated 60 percent of all nonresident big game licenses as outfitter sponsored.
HB 637 wasn’t identical, but it still permanently gives hunters choosing to use the services of an outfitter a big leg up to draw coveted B-10 and B-11 combination licenses. This is counter to the notion that everyone should have an equal opportunity to hunt in Montana, and flies in the face of Montana voters who outlawed special treatment for wealthy, out-of-state tags.
Numerous sporting organizations spoke out against SB 143, with thousands of comments against it. But HB 637, with the last-minute changes, gave public hunters little opportunity to speak out. Hunters did flood the governor’s office requesting that he veto the bill.
We will now look at ways in the 2023 Legislature to rectify the changes to the preference point system that HB 637 instituted to restore equal opportunity for nonresident hunters.
On Thursday, the Biden Administration released a report, Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful, detailing a bold vision to conserve America’s lands and waters through locally-led conservation efforts. The concept has broad support from the sporting community such as Hunt Fish 30×30, a coalition of nearly 60 state and national sporting organizations. In response to today’s announcement, the Montana Wildlife Federation applauded the report and its emphasis on restoring valuable fish and wildlife habitat and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s bold plan to conserve and restore America’s lands and waters should be applauded by hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts alike. Along with confronting the impacts of climate change, it will help create jobs, catalyze collaborative, locally driven conservation efforts and will aid in the recovery of many fish and wildlife species that are currently at risk of extinction,” said Frank Szollosi, executive director for the Montana Wildlife Federation.
The report, which was released to the National Climate Task Force, outlines the Administration’s priorities in achieving the 30×30 initiative, a plan to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters over the next decade. Specifically, the principles of locally led conservation efforts in the report give significant recognition to the stewardship of America’s lands and waters by farmers, ranchers, tribal nations, hunters and anglers.
“Today’s report shows that the Administration is committed to understanding the needs of local communities to achieve conservation priorities, as well as bolstering our outdoor recreation economy and providing more access for hunters and anglers to enjoy our public lands and waters” said Szollosi.
Early in the 2021 Montana Legislature, the Senate Fish and Game committee heard from more than a thousand hunters who spoke strongly against a bill to create outfitter-sponsored nonresident big-game licenses. But after the initial effort to create these licenses failed, outfitters slipped a similar measure into a bill at the last minute in a terrible display of swamp-style politics.
SB 143, sponsored by Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, would have designated 60 percent of all the big game combination licenses for nonresidents as outfitter sponsored tags. The bill failed as proposed.
Montanans said they support equal chance to draw a license for – including nonresidents who want to come here on a do-it-yourself hunt. But just as important, Montana hunters and non-residents alike were opposed because SB 143 had not been discussed with anyone other than outfitting interests.
Fast forward about two months, to the final days of the session, and the same thing happened with HB 637, which FWP dubbed its clean-up bill for the session. Special interests had inserted in the bill an amendment that gives unlimited outfitters sponsored licenses this year. And permanently gives nonresident hunters using an outfitter an extra preference point for the coveted combination licenses.
Montana hunters offered a solution of simply moving up the drawing date, so outfitters would know whom to market their services to. HB 637 is the worst example of a special interest exerting influence over the allocation of our public wildlife. It’s swamp-style politics at its worst.
MWF joined many of our affiliates and conservation partners requesting the governor veto this bad bill. You can read the letter here.
In a bipartisan win for public access, a win for working ranches, and a win for our outdoor recreation economy, the Montana Legislature largely defended conservation funding approved by nearly 58% of voters last fall in recently passing H.B. 701. MWF encourages Governor Greg Gianforte to sign the bill and deliver historic funding to Montana’s Great Outdoors.
Montana Wildlife Federation took the extraordinary step of endorsing the legalization and conservation funding ballot measures because deficiencies for our public natural resources and their enjoyment have been decades in the making and needed to be addressed. A 2019 report produced by Montana-based Headwaters Economics found numerous funding shortfalls to keep up with the growing demands on our state’s parks, ranches and farms, public trails and public wildlife. For example:
Many of MWF’s affiliates, Board Directors, and members across the state joined 29 other conservation groups in working with a bipartisan group of legislators to secure a projected $16 million per year by 2025 for conservation in Montana.
Conservation Director
Jeff Lukas is a passionate conservationist who has been fishing and hunting his entire life. Whether it’s floating a small stream chasing trout, pursuing elk in the high country, or waiting in a blind for ducks to set their wings, Jeff is always trying to bring more people afield to show them what we are trying to protect. He loves being in the arena, and he will never shy away from conversations about the beautiful and unique corners of Big Sky country.
