Draft Elk Management Plan is out

[Ben Lamb]

We both know things move fast in the legislature, and I don't doubt the legal staff of those groups trusted the lobbyist who wrote it and summarized it for them and didn't give it a second glance. I'm not just one person saying you are wrong, there's a whole lot of others who took the time to understand it too. Again, if you compare the original with the amended version of the bill, they were exactly the same. It quite literally just spread the language out so people reading the bill would slow down and understand it.

But I think we've beat that horse to death (again, just had to make sure).

Always happy to cuss and discuss with you, Ben, and I'm glad we now have an EMP to start trying to untangle this mess.

EMP & Season setting to be sure!

And just as a point of clarification - those groups run stuff through their legal teams before commenting.

Nobody trusts the word of a lobbyist, even if it's me.

 

[Deleted member 48080]

@Elky Welky reading between the lines, are you with BHA? Sorry if I missed you say so else where.

I don't recognize you from your avatar. Is that Santa?

 

[Elky Welky]

@Elky Welky reading between the lines, are you with BHA? Sorry if I missed you say so else where.

I don't recognize you from your avatar. Is that Santa?

Haha the avatar is Ernest Hemingway. And on Hunt Talk, I only represent myself, (sometimes a little more unfiltered), not the org I volunteer with (which yes, is MT-BHA).

 

[Deleted member 48080]

Haha the avatar is Ernest Hemingway.

How transcendent!

 

[rogerthat]

“Until we find a way to disincentivize hoarding elk we are always going to have issues with elk being over objective.”

“Until we and FWP get the cojones to do something like ‘cow only,’ and not look at that as a punishment but as an incentive as Eric suggested, we are always going to have issues with elk being over objective.”

“Until we vote in legislators and an administration that comprehends biological and social science and seeks to represent and uphold real MT values vs. us voting blindly based on the letter that follows the name, we are alway going to have issues fixing elk being over objective [and wildlife management in general].”

“Until landowners hold themselves accountable for their actions (or inactions; e.g., you don’t want to allow access, fine, but understand that the consequences to you and/or your neighbors is on you) we are alway going to have issues fixing elk being over objective.”

“Until hunters hold themselves accountable for their actions (or the ever-increasing drive to shoot the biggest and the best and what that’s turned hunting into in the last 20(?) years, driving commercialization, privatization, demand for exclusivity), we are alway going to have issues fixing elk being over objective.”

(Whew, my inner Matt Rinella almost came out there)

Fixed it for you; pick your poison.

Counting or not counting elk based on where they reside is great in theory but not applicable in the real world, IMO.

Biologists have to limit survey periods to a snapshot in time, when elk are most visible hence winter/spring greenup surveys. Sometimes this is reflective of where elk are during the hunting season but generally it’s not entirely accurate. Surveying elk multiple times/seasons would probably be cost-prohibitive and given everything else (warmer weather, no snow, dense veg, more dispersed groups, implications of buzzing elk/hunters in the season, etc.) would be ineffective and man, you think people are pissed at FWP now wait until they spoil a stalk with a low-flying plane.

Radiocollars can get at some of this but again would not show the complete picture without a huge sample of elk collared everywhere.

Ignoring several hundred or several thousand elk holed up on a “refuge” during the hunting season is a disservice and not fair to neighboring landowners who are legitimately affected when those elk move off those properties. It doesn’t make sense when you need to consider elk impacts to habitats where resources are limited, competition with other species (mule deer), disease.

FWP has to count and consider those elk because they don’t exist in a vacuum and move across property boundaries season to season and even day-to-day.

Should accessibility of elk during hunting season be considered when looking at elk objectives and management? Hells yes. But as has been going around and around and around here it’s obviously easier said than done. Improving public land habitat conditions and limiting public land hunting will help but nothing will be resolved or close to fixed without access. Simplest solution but the hardest to implement. Whoever figures out the silver bullet to get billionaires to ‘share’ a public resource (gosh that sounds so silly and simple and it’s ridiculous we are even here as a society) deserves a Nobel Prize.

So if the billionaires hold the keys to the castle then why do fwp and hunters feel “responsible” to solve the problem? If we can’t figure out a way to take into consideration that “these” elk are beyond the purvey of MT fwp and hunters than the solution implemented is going to keep having the unintended consequences of making the problem worse. Hence all the comments you quoted

 

[Elky Welky]

So if the billionaires hold the keys to the castle then why do fwp and hunters feel “responsible” to solve the problem? If we can’t figure out a way to take into consideration that “these” elk are beyond the purvey of MT fwp and hunters than the solution implemented is going to keep having the unintended consequences of making the problem worse. Hence all the comments you quoted

Unfortunately I think you already know the answer to this: the elk are a public resource held in public trust by the State, regardless of what land they stand on. So it isn't just a feeling of responsibility, it is the task FWP is mandated to do as the state agency in charge of it. So even if we don't access them, they are always in the purview of FWP.

Hunters, however, as members of the public and a directly-impacted user group, aren't responsible to solve the problem. But we sure do like having our say, given how it affects us. And if we don't speak our piece, we certainly feel responsible when things go south.

 

[rogerthat]

Unfortunately I think you already know the answer to this: the elk are a public resource held in public trust by the State, regardless of what land they stand on. So it isn't just a feeling of responsibility, it is the task FWP is mandated to do as the state agency in charge of it. So even if we don't access them, they are always in the purview of FWP.

Hunters, however, as members of the public and a directly-impacted user group, aren't responsible to solve the problem. But we sure do like having our say, given how it affects us. And if we don't speak our piece, we certainly feel responsible when things go south.

Fair enough. Doesn’t change the fact that by not taking into account the lack of access to these elk, the solution implemented to address the over objective will continue to drive these elk off the accessible lands to the inaccessible lands. Ie public land hunter takes it in the shorts due to “over-objective” classification

 

[Elky Welky]

Fair enough. Doesn’t change the fact that by not taking into account the lack of access to these elk, the solution implemented to address the over objective will continue to drive these elk off the accessible lands to the inaccessible lands. Ie public land hunter takes it in the shorts due to “over-objective” classification

Agree 100%. That's one of the bigger concerns about this new plan as opposed to the old; it deletes any language regarding not including inaccessible elk in objective numbers.

 

[JLS]

Fair enough. Doesn’t change the fact that by not taking into account the lack of access to these elk, the solution implemented to address the over objective will continue to drive these elk off the accessible lands to the inaccessible lands. Ie public land hunter takes it in the shorts due to “over-objective” classification

FWP is legally mandated to manage at or below objectives. Not doing so exposes them to civil liability and the ire of the legislature. I’m going to speculate long term inability to get things at or below objective could lead to potential litigation and court orders mandating they do so.

 

[Elky Welky]

FWP is legally mandated to manage at or below objectives. Not doing so exposes them to civil liability and the ire of the legislature. I’m going to speculate long term inability to get things at or below objective could lead to potential litigation and court orders mandating they do so.

Litigation is already happening: https://www.plwa.org/upom-lawsuit

 

[rogerthat]

FWP is legally mandated to manage at or below objectives. Not doing so exposes them to civil liability and the ire of the legislature. I’m going to speculate long term inability to get things at or below objective could lead to potential litigation and court orders mandating they do so.

I understand that. They are however not required to come up with solutions that make the problem worse meanwhile trashing the hunting on lands accessible to 90% of the hunters. Get smart or keep smashing your nuts off the wall. New EMP appears to continue the nut smashing by not acknowledging the inaccessible elk(including them in the objectives) and implementing general season for not being able to get them at or under objective(which we know they won’t. That’s been proven).

 

[Badlandcat]

If y'all want to start talking about cutting licenses, etc, then you need to know the budget & how your choices are going to impact every other aspect.

For example, if you want to cut the B10 & B11 tags, FWP loses the earmarks that protect Habitat Montana funding and Block Management Funding.

Simply cutting the orphaned deer licenses that get resold as B11's, you're looking at a $3 million hit. You'd have to double the price of a resident deer tag to just make up the loss of those 7,000 or so licenses.

https://leg.mt.gov/content/Publications/fiscal/2025-Biennium/Section-C/Session/FWP-Budget-Information-and-Guide.pdf

Doubling the price of deer tags isn't enough. Triple would be better.

 

[JLS]

I understand that. They are however not required to come up with solutions that make the problem worse meanwhile trashing the hunting on lands accessible to 90% of the hunters. Get smart or keep smashing your nuts off the wall. New EMP appears to continue the nut smashing by not acknowledging the inaccessible elk(including them in the objectives) and implementing general season for not being able to get them at or under objective(which we know they won’t. That’s been proven).

I’m not going to disagree with you, and i don’t understand why they’ve not drawn a harder line on the page 55 issue and going to cow only. I would think the cow only season would greatly reduce their legal liability.

 

[antlerradar]

FWP is legally mandated to manage at or below objectives. Not doing so exposes them to civil liability and the ire of the legislature. I’m going to speculate long term inability to get things at or below objective could lead to potential litigation and court orders mandating they do so.

If it comes to that, I am going to agree with @BuzzH, bring on the helicopters.

 

[Ben Lamb]

I’m not going to disagree with you, and i don’t understand why they’ve not drawn a harder line on the page 55 issue and going to cow only. I would think the cow only season would greatly reduce their legal liability.

Had an interesting discussion last week on this with the only bio that I know of who implemented Page 55 & had wicked good success with it in the Madison and Bitterroot.

I think you have to be selective in where it gets applied for it to be succesful. Those places have to have enough landowner to landowner relationships that the peer pressure comes from them as well as from the agency. Hunter pressure isn't the switch for the last holdouts. 55 wasn't used for a variety of reasons - politics being the chief one. If they went to cow only in eastern MT we would have had multiple sessions of bills as wild as moving all wildlife management over to counties and as tame as transferable tags on every bit of private land. The FWP budget would have been severely impacted through the use of restricted funds, etc and we'd likely see a fair number of key programs zeroed out.

 

[mtmiller]

Had an interesting discussion last week on this with the only bio that I know of who implemented Page 55 & had wicked good success with it in the Madison and Bitterroot.

I would love to see the an annual number associated with pg 55. I have ten fingers and assume I would have still have a few based on count of inaccessible elk. Would like to hear more about your conversation.

 

[Elky Welky]

as tame as transferable tags on every bit of private land

Emphasis on "tame." What a riot that would have been.

Can you please clarify what you mean by "hunter pressure isn't the switch for the last holdouts."? I'm not sure I'm following.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Emphasis on "tame." What a riot that would have been.

Can you please clarify what you mean by "hunter pressure isn't the switch for the last holdouts."? I'm not sure I'm following.

Just means that pressure from the hunting community hasn't really produced any significant increase in access to inaccessible critters, and that our motivations for wanting to get those animals accessible isn't part of the operating plan for a bunch of ranchers, cash wealthy or cash poor. The idea that we'd be able to withhold some kind of help for people until they open those lands has been a major part of the elk wars from our end. Regardless of what we think or how we approach the issue, a large number of landowners distrust our motivations (rightly or wrongly) and we've not done a good job trying to meet them where they are.

As for the $20 bit, that's what I was charging when I was in the game, but that's been since the late 90's. So my prices may be out of date.

 

[Elky Welky]

Thanks! I'd be afraid to enter the market these days, I might learn just how little I'm worth, ha!

Back on topic. "Pressure" is being used in two contexts on this thread: actual physical pressure of hunters on the landscape, and social pressure by the hunting community. I was confused by the context.

I completely agree with the failures of social pressure to change hearts and minds in the landowner community. It's why I'm a big advocate for the Master Hunter program as a step in the right direction, and would love to see the department adopt something more like it that removes the "pay-to-play" aspect and helps build a community of ethical hunters that landowners would welcome on to their property. The hunter's ed we take when we are little kids is woefully inadequate.

And for better or worse, right or wrong, the department's efforts to encourage opening private lands to hunting have been labelled as "punitive" as opposed to "incentivizing." And that label has haunted us.

 

[mtmiller]

It's why I'm a big advocate for the Master Hunter program as a step in the right direction, and would love to see the department adopt something more like it that removes the "pay-to-play" aspect and helps build a community of ethical hunters that landowners would welcome on to their property.

Can we keep the current name and hand out patches?