Big Game needs big country

[Ben Lamb]

Montana Wild Sheep Foundation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and MWF Oped in today's Helena IR:

Montana’s hunters and anglers have worked for almost a century with local ranchers to conserve this dynamic and breathtaking area. Their first big breakthrough was the formation of the Sun River Game Preserve in 1913. In 1947, they created the Sun River Game Range, followed by the Blackleaf and Ear Mountain Wildlife Management Areas in the 1970s and the conservation easement program currently under way.

But rich as it is, the conservation story of the Rocky Mountain Front remains incomplete.

Read more: http://helenair.com/news/opinion/an...24e-11e0-b3e8-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1UXu3Q9Ck

www.savethefront.org

 

[RockyDog]

Ben, thanks. im really glad alot of the front is being conserved.

I just got back from a trip to Outer Banks, North Carolina. I had not been there since a trip in 1999, back then it was fairly undeveloped and a beautiful place. now it is completely developed and almost every last open space is filled with rental houses, mansions and condos. The whole time i was thinking about how eventually people will fill up the west in the same way and the Front may be one of the few exceptions.

 

[Ben Lamb]

There's a lot of effort being placed both on the private lands and the public lands. I'm working on the public land aspect of it. It's an incredible campaign: Ranchers, Farmers, Hunters, Hikers, Business Owners, etc have all come together to craft a plan that works for everyone.

It's been an amazing 4 years, working on this. Hopefully someone picks it up and introduces it soon.

 

[Oak]

Big game is big business in my neck of the woods, too. But extraction industries are Bigger Business, and it seems like the opinion of the local majority is, yes, we want to protect our big game herds, as long as that doesn't get in the way of Bigger Business. After all, wildlife is resilient, and people won't just stop coming to hunt, right? The local bumper sticker reads, "Natural gas feeds my family, and yours!"

 

[Ben Lamb]

Oak,

No doubt. I stood on the Pinedale Anticline before the drilled the piss out of it and reduced the Mule Deer herd by 60% and knew then and there that the love of money truly is the root of all evil.

Luckily, the Front was withdrawn from oil and gas development in 2007. That model was used in the Wyoming Range in 2009.

The key difference I've found is that by teaming up with interests that you might look sideways at usually, you can develop a coalition of folks who all share the same love of place like we have for the Front. To be sure, coalition members were lobbying against each other at the legislature, but we always knew where our hearts were when it came to protecting special places.

Keep fighting. I know Torbit is leaving, but the folks at NWF in Boulder do some great work. So does CWF and so many other groups in CO. Get organized and stay pissed off.

 

[tarheel]

Ben, thanks. im really glad alot of the front is being conserved.

I just got back from a trip to Outer Banks, North Carolina. I had not been there since a trip in 1999, back then it was fairly undeveloped and a beautiful place. now it is completely developed and almost every last open space is filled with rental houses, mansions and condos. The whole time i was thinking about how eventually people will fill up the west in the same way and the Front may be one of the few exceptions.

Do all you possibly can to preserve what you have! As pointed out by Rocky Dog. a beautifully pristine area which is dear to my heart has been destroyed by development in the form of three story beach houses, touristy stores, condos and all the accompanying crap that seems to follow the overly rich. The wild ponies have been hit and killed by their SUV's to the point that the remaining few have been moved up the island and away from the idiots who feel it necessary to try to grow lawns on beach sand.
I'd like to see a major hurricane hit the banks and blow the entire mess into the sound and they can all pack up and go back to Virginia and Washington never to return.

Sorry to veer off so on my rant, but thought you guys out west might benefit from a classic example of how things can turn out if steps aren't taken early to protect and preserve what you have. They all want a piece of the pristine, but once they start moving in it becomes something else and we've all lost.