Good Neighbor: Elk Management in Montana

[Ben Lamb]

Great short film on Elk management in MT by Outdoor Life, RMEF, OnX, TRCP and One Montana:
Article: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/elk-rancher-conflict-film/

Film:

One guy in the film seems awfully familiar. So does the narrator.

 

[Forkyfinder]

These arent direct quotes but are summaries of what was said from the same non block management enrolled landowner:

2 mins in - i would be better off if i quit ranching and did recreational/outfitting only. It is more profitable than ranching.
8 mins in - i need financial rewards/incentives to harbor elk.
11 mins in - outfitting and wildlife support my ranch.

Color me confused.

 

[Ben Lamb]

These arent direct quotes but are summaries of what was said from the same non block management enrolled landowner:

2 mins in - i would be better off if i quit ranching and did recreational/outfitting only. It is more profitable than ranching.
8 mins in - i need financial rewards/incentives to harbor elk.
11 mins in - outfitting and wildlife support my ranch.

Color me confused.

I'd watch it again then. His perspective is spot on. It can appear dichotomous but from his perspective it makes perfect sense.

Here is how I see that:

Ranchers are squeezed between significant issues: weather related events, infestations of grasshoppers, drought, fire and low commodity prices along with an aggressively profit-motivated packing industry that isn't so interested in family ag as much as shareholder value dominate their lives. For those folks, adding elk that are taking forage that they have to replace at high cost (depending on the year for hay), you end up getting pushed over the edge and a big, brown target that comes with thousands of grey-shirted people to yell at become a really good way to vent your frustrations.

As far as financial incentives - yep. He does. He's not running an amenity ranch, this is his family's business. They live and die by it. It's akin to asking you to work overtime w/o pay. If you get time and a half or double time, that sacrifice is worth it. If you aren't being compensated for the lost time, profitability and quality of life, what makes you want to work that overtime?

Wildlife and outfitting do support the ranch. I've also heard Matt talk about wanting to get out of it and just ranch. If he can't find a profitable path for that, then he sells and maybe it goes to someone who doesn't have kids in schools, doesn't volunteer for the local 4H club, school track meets, basketball games, etc.

The tone of the piece is about being good neighbors. If the goal is to understand the issue in it's entirety, then being able to empathize with someone else's perspective is mission critical to finding the best solution for the problem.

 

[Nameless Range]

Really good film. Thanks for sharing it.


I've said it before and I'll say it again. At the 8 minute mark, a landowner coming from a genuine place says this:

"I think anything that’s gonna be a long term solution has gotta be incentive based. If you made it to where it is desirable for me to have elk on my property, and then I can give access. Because ultimately when I’m talking incentives, everyone likes to dance around it, but I’m talking financial. Like that’s the bottom line. People need to be paid because there’s real expenses involved with having elk on your land.”

We have a mechanism for that incentive, and it's called block management. I know block management is a compensatory tool for access and not elk per se, but the two are inexorably intertwined. We need to strengthen it, increase incentives ($ amounts), and probably make it more complex in terms of compensation levels that take into consideration habitat, different species of focus, elk numbers, hunter access, etc.

What we don't need is another program that really does very little in terms of access and harvest and incentive to landowners when juxtaposed against Block Management. Lean into what works and is wildly successful, and accept that in some geographies and ownerships it won't, and that is ok.


I'm taking the afternoon off work to go to a working group meeting with its own large landowner membership portion, some who have been involved in BM since its inception. Tomorrow, I'll use more vacation to drive another 200 miles to try to harvest and elk or two on a game damage hunt I've already tried once and wasn't successful at. The point isn't me, the point is that any solution that works for landowners will have to involve more skin in the game from the hunting public than we are currently giving. The ones who are working the land and trying to maintain the culture we all enjoy - they are giving a hell of a lot.

 

[Forkyfinder]

I'd watch it again then. His perspective is spot on. It can appear dichotomous but from his perspective it makes perfect sense.

Here is how I see that:

Ranchers are squeezed between significant issues: weather related events, infestations of grasshoppers, drought, fire and low commodity prices along with an aggressively profit-motivated packing industry that isn't so interested in family ag as much as shareholder value dominate their lives. For those folks, adding elk that are taking forage that they have to replace at high cost (depending on the year for hay), you end up getting pushed over the edge and a big, brown target that comes with thousands of grey-shirted people to yell at become a really good way to vent your frustrations.

As far as financial incentives - yep. He does. He's not running an amenity ranch, this is his family's business. They live and die by it. It's akin to asking you to work overtime w/o pay. If you get time and a half or double time, that sacrifice is worth it. If you aren't being compensated for the lost time, profitability and quality of life, what makes you want to work that overtime?

Wildlife and outfitting do support the ranch. I've also heard Matt talk about wanting to get out of it and just ranch. If he can't find a profitable path for that, then he sells and maybe it goes to someone who doesn't have kids in schools, doesn't volunteer for the local 4H club, school track meets, basketball games, etc.

The tone of the piece is about being good neighbors. If the goal is to understand the issue in it's entirety, then being able to empathize with someone else's perspective is mission critical to finding the best solution for the problem.

Maybe a direct quote from this same landowner would help.

"Anything thats a long term solution has got to be incentive based - if you made it to where it was desirable to have elk on my property"

Can you help me understand what incentives are lacking - given the outfitting apparently supports the ranching that occurs?

Im all for helping land owners with elk problems. Someone whos seeking additional compensation (from either sportsman or taxpayers) to harbor wildlife while "outfitting" is a better business and supports the unsuccessful side by his own admission needs no additional incentives.

This is far from the case for everyone i realize. But i think its a particularily poor example.

 

[SAJ-99]

8 mins in - i need financial rewards/incentives to harbor elk.

He also said that allowing access is "more of a pain than a benefit", and I completely understand that view. I think his general point is he has to feed 100 elk in order to have 2-3 good bulls. What are those bulls worth to public land hunters? The outfitting probably brings in as much as allowing hundreds of people access through BM, and in the end neither fix the problem of too many elk. The elk just move off for a few weeks. That said, WhyTF would he ranch is a legit question. It sounds like choosing to beat your head against a tree for fun.

 

[Forkyfinder]

He also said that allowing access is "more of a pain than a benefit", and I completely understand that view. I think his general point is he has to feed 100 elk in order to have 2-3 good bulls. What are those bulls worth to public land hunters? The outfitting probably brings in as much as allowing hundreds of people access through BM, and in the end neither fix the problem of too many elk. The elk just move off for a few weeks. That said, WhyTF would he ranch is a legit question. It sounds like choosing to beat your head against a tree for fun.

I imagine it is quite the pain when those bulls are the only reliable profit for your ranch. And p.s. lots of folks are paying for cow elk hunts via landtrust, apparently. I imagine part of the ag operation is to maintain tax status.

I am stoked that wildlife can turn a profit on some private land without subsidy or handout. I like seeing them there and ill always hope for more. My point is - the incentives for this ranch keep elk already exist in an obvious nature. And others are available.

Not to say the BMA program cant be changed or improved to provide better incentives.

 

[SAJ-99]

I imagine it is quite the pain when those bulls are the only reliable profit for your ranch. And p.s. lots of folks are paying for cow elk hunts via landtrust, apparently. I imagine part of the ag operation is to maintain tax status.

I am stoked that wildlife can turn a profit on some private land without subsidy or handout. I like seeing them there and ill always hope for more. My point is - the incentives for this ranch keep elk already exist in an obvious nature. And others are available.

Not to say the BMA program cant be changed or improved to provide better incentives.

The suggestions are the end were great but I am not sure how realistic they are. Maybe Type II BM should have a Good Neighbor component where those people that help the rank him the spring or summer can sign up first for a few days of the season. It probably screws NRs a little, but tough cookies. There are a lot of possibilities but they might involve technology and MT FWP has not exactly been stellar in their ability to implement the simplest stuff on the internet.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Maybe a direct quote from this same landowner would help.

"Anything thats a long term solution has got to be incentive based - if you made it to where it was desirable to have elk on my property"

Can you help me understand what incentives are lacking - given the outfitting apparently supports the ranching that occurs?

Im all for helping land owners with elk problems. Someone whos seeking additional compensation (from either sportsman or taxpayers) to harbor wildlife while "outfitting" is a better business and supports the unsuccessful side by his own admission needs no additional incentives.

This is far from the case for everyone i realize. But i think its a particularily poor example.

You have to take the entirety of his comments to heart - and assume positive intent. Your cynicism is clouding your perception.

I didn't think Matt was asking for additional compensation on top of outfitting, but rather his perspective of needing an income to sustain his operation, and outfitting gets him that but it comes with a lot of other costs along with the cost of doing business, so if he stops that, then elk become a financial liability to the his operation and not an asset, leading to a loss of tolerance of elk in general. Meanwhile, public access doesn't always get them what they need in terms of management outcomes relative to overall populations and so maybe Block Mgt doesn't work for their program, but outfitting allows them the economic breathing room to allow for larger herds of wild elk without worrying about being able to meet the loan note.

 

[Big Fin]

A well done film and good message.

I took from his comment that having public hunters come and shoot 2-3 cow elk in a weekend (assuming the public hunter who shows up is capable of that) is not worth the headache of a scared herd of elk knocking down fences when they run off. I can see that point. If I was a landowner, I might accept the burden of 2-3 extra elk feeding on my place, maybe even 10-20 extra cow elk, if the alternative required me to repair or replace a bunch of fence every Sunday.

I'll expand on that reality, based on my interaction with CPA clients who do allow some cow hunting to the public. I am surprised at how many examples they have of hunters who cannot stalk an elk, cannot hit an elk with a rifle, and don't know how to take care of an elk when they get one down. The average Hunt Talker is not your average dude who shows up to shoot a cow elk. That might sound judgmental and it's not meant to be. It's just that most of us have a ton of elk hunting experience and if you put us in a pasture with a herd of elk and a cow tag, there's likely to be a dead cow elk with one empty shell case. We've done it a lot, so it seems pretty doable to us. Many of the folks who show up for these cow hunts don't have much experience and that can create problems that landowners would rather not have to deal with.

The landowner I know who allows the most cow elk hunting of any landowner in Region 3 now has his employees guide the cow elk hunters, for free. It's cheaper and easier than the messes they were trying to clean up when they sent strangers out there unassisted. They do it to be a good neighbor and to try redistribute elk to the adjacent public lands, yet it comes at a cost to them, whether they do/don't help these cow hunters.

That's a bit of a tangent, yet a consideration as to why landowners are willing to deal with some elk problems, which some think is intentional "harboring," a term not well suited to most situations of why elk accumulate on low-pressure private lands adjacent to high-pressure public lands. Once they accept that the presence of elk is easier than the presence of public hunters, it's a pretty easy financial decision to add a few bull hunts or leasing the hunting to a hunt club or an outfitter.

I wish it was different. Yet, that's a reality that needs to be accepted as part of the solutions.

 

[antlerradar]

Meanwhile, public access doesn't always get them what they need in terms of management outcomes relative to overall populations and so maybe Block Mgt doesn't work for their program, but outfitting allows them the economic breathing room to allow for larger herds of wild elk without worrying about being able to meet the loan note.

If you have a loan note, you may not be calling the shots on how you manage wildlife,your banker might be

 

[antlerradar]

A well done film and good message.

I took from his comment that having public hunters come and shoot 2-3 cow elk in a weekend (assuming the public hunter who shows up is capable of that) is not worth the headache of a scared herd of elk knocking down fences when they run off. I can see that point. If I was a landowner, I might accept the burden of 2-3 extra elk feeding on my place, maybe even 10-20 extra cow elk, if the alternative required me to repair or replace a bunch of fence every Sunday.

I'll expand on that reality, based on my interaction with CPA clients who do allow some cow hunting to the public. I am surprised at how many examples they have of hunters who cannot stalk an elk, cannot hit an elk with a rifle, and don't know how to take care of an elk when they get one down. The average Hunt Talker is not your average dude who shows up to shoot a cow elk. That might sound judgmental and it's not meant to be. It's just that most of us have a ton of elk hunting experience and if you put us in a pasture with a herd of elk and a cow tag, there's likely to be a dead cow elk with one empty shell case. We've done it a lot, so it seems pretty doable to us. Many of the folks who show up for these cow don't have much experience and that can create problems that landowners would rather not have to deal with.

The landowner I know who allows the most cow elk hunting of any landowner in Region 3 now has his employees guide the cow elk hunters, for free. It's cheaper and easier than the messes they were trying to clean up when they sent strangers out there unassisted. They do it to be a good neighbor and to try redistribute elk to the adjacent public lands, yet it comes at a cost to them, whether they do/don't help these cow hunters.

That's a bit of a tangent, yet a consideration as to why landowners are willing to deal with some elk problems, which some think is intentional "harboring," a term not well suited to most situations of why elk accumulate on low-pressure private lands adjacent to high-pressure public lands. Once they accept that the presence of elk is easier than the presence of public hunters, it's a pretty easy financial decision to add a few bull hunts or leasing the hunting to a hunt club or an outfitter.

I wish it was different. Yet, that's a reality that needs to be accepted as part of the solutions.

I am not one bit surprised at the incompetence of many hunters off the street. I have seen it too many times. One of the issues you left out is those hunters are taking up the space of someone that might just be able to get the job done. Hunters want a hunt, Landowners want a harvest. People that can't kill a cow elk can still have a great time and hunt, but to a landowner they are just a waste of time and space.

 

[Flatbrimmer]

Outfitter sounded like he was monetizing wildlife to me….

 

[Forkyfinder]

Outfitter sounded like he was monetizing wildlife to me….

He is. And thats absolutely a good thing for him and for wildlife. He - in particular - has no reason to need anything from the state or sportsmen to have wildlife.

@Ben Lamb what incentive would you propose? It seems there is an implication that BMA is not enough and something else is nepeded.

 

[Elky Welky]

I am not one bit surprised at the incompetence of many hunters off the street. I have seen it too many times. One of the issues you left out is those hunters are taking up the space of someone that might just be able to get the job done. Hunters want a hunt, Landowners want a harvest. People that can't kill a cow elk can still have a great time and hunt, but to a landowner they are just a waste of time and space.

Do landowners not believe that the pressure those hunters put on the herd is still helpful to getting elk off the property?

I enjoyed this video as an intro to the problem; it pretty fairly demonstrates this issue from some great angles. Good work all.

Robert Frosts' poem Mending Wall introduced the quote "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" and is his second most misquoted poem (The Road Not Taken being the first), because most people stop at that quote and don't read further into it.

In the poem, the speaker talks about how every year him and his neighbor meet at the fence and rebuild the gaps caused by weather and hunters (yup!). The poet never brings it up to his neighbor, but wonders to himself why they keep rebuilding the fence, because it is between a pine wood and an apple orchard and won't cause any problems. Yet the neighbor is insistent that "good fences make good neighbors" without any justification other than that it is what his father taught him and a stubborn refusal to change.

To this day people say that line from the poem not realizing the poem they are quoting is mocking it. Good fences don't make good neighbors. Building walls is not the way to solve the problems we have. Common ground isn't common if it has a fence through it.*

But I also only think common ground can take us so far. I still do not see how you attach money--to the rancher "incentivize" and to the hunter "monetize"--wildlife in a way that does not conflict with some deeply held values: 1) the core value that one's property is theirs to do with as they please and they do not need to accept government help if their property comes with a nuisance--but they should be compensated for that nuisance because they did not choose to have it versus 2) the deeply held value among conservationists that wildlife is owned by all, held in public trust, and does not abide by property boundaries. If the money is attached to the wildlife, then I do not see a way to reconcile these values without favoring one set of values over the other.

Attaching the money to access however, has seemed to do a heck of a lot of good for all without sacrificing anyone's values to accomplish it, i.e. Block.

*(There you have it. 10 years later and I just put that MA in Literature to use. I'll go back to munching on avocado toast and dreaming of buying a house in Montana.)

 

[Pagosa]

I sure agree more with Justin Schaff and Bob Anderson than Matt, especially when they show all the trophy animals in his house. I believe in helping out when time is available and I took off a day this fall to sort and haul cattle for a guy that was in BM last year but didn't re-enroll, not bc I wanted to hunt his property but bc I know he needed help.
I think upping the incentives for landowners to be in BM would help, and cutting out all the type 2 BMAs that are family and friends hunting operations that FWP is funding. I would rather see a landowner have marginal hunting ground enrolled than some dickhead that setups his property in a type 2 BMA and books out for the entire 12 week season to every friend and family member in the county.

 

[DFS]

The “overpopulation” of elk on private will not be fixed with anything short of aerial gunning.

 

[ismith]

I've been listening to GD political attack ads for the last 3 months saying how bad it is that a certain political candidate rancher charges money to hunt elk on his ranch................

 

[Borny1]

I have tried and tried to see it from the landowner's perspective who has elk issues. With land ownership comes issues with drought, weeds, floods, fires, etc. Wildlife comes with that package. It's their issue. I understand that if your neighbor harbors elk, you are going to have trouble addressing elk problems. FWP goes out of their way to offer block management and game damage hunts. Land owners could put fliers at the local diner, high-school, or on the nearest road advertising they need help. They could include when, where, and how people could get access, but they don't. They want the money they know comes from hunting because of outfitters and what they see on the web. Randy has a great comment above about a large percentage of hunters not being efficient harvesters which is accurate, but those people are great hazers. With suffering comes wisdom and until wisdom comes I just don't see a resolution.

 

[ismith]

Do landowners not believe that the pressure those hunters put on the herd is still helpful to getting elk off the property?

I enjoyed this video as an intro to the problem; it pretty fairly demonstrates this issue from some great angles. Good work all.

Robert Frosts' poem Mending Wall introduced the quote "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" and is his second most misquoted poem (The Road Not Taken being the first), because most people stop at that quote and don't read further into it.

In the poem, the speaker talks about how every year him and his neighbor meet at the fence and rebuild the gaps caused by weather and hunters (yup!). The poet never brings it up to his neighbor, but wonders to himself why they keep rebuilding the fence, because it is between a pine wood and an apple orchard and won't cause any problems. Yet the neighbor is insistent that "good fences make good neighbors" without any justification other than that it is what his father taught him and a stubborn refusal to change.

To this day people say that line from the poem not realizing the poem they are quoting is mocking it. Good fences don't make good neighbors. Building walls is not the way to solve the problems we have. Common ground isn't common if it has a fence through it.*

But I also only think common ground can take us so far. I still do not see how you attach money--to the rancher "incentivize" and to the hunter "monetize"--wildlife in a way that does not conflict with some deeply held values: 1) the core value that one's property is theirs to do with as they please and they do not need to accept government help if their property comes with a nuisance--but they should be compensated for that nuisance because they did not choose to have it versus 2) the deeply held value among conservationists that wildlife is owned by all, held in public trust, and does not abide by property boundaries. If the money is attached to the wildlife, then I do not see a way to reconcile these values without favoring one set of values over the other.

Attaching the money to access however, has seemed to do a heck of a lot of good for all without sacrificing anyone's values to accomplish it, i.e. Block.

*(There you have it. 10 years later and I just put that MA in Literature to use. I'll go back to munching on avocado toast and dreaming of buying a house in Montana.)

Hear, Hear!