Non resident Landowner incentive.

[TheJason]

Even if there is outside pressure, bad habitat on private land won't keep them there.

Sure it will. They just learn to move back and forth in the dark.

 

[TheJason]

If you forget the past, you'll repeat it.

My apologies to @Ben Lamb for my cynicism with respect to this. I know you are doing your best to move the ship in the right direction and my intent is not to shit on the good work you're doing.

I'm not sure if and when it changed, but there was a time when a NR landowner could get a deer/elk combo license in lieu of payment if they enrolled in block management. I have it from a reliable source that @antlerradar had an absentee neighbor who considered block management so he or a family member could get a license every year. At the end of the day, they could achieve the same thing by leasing to an outfitter and then hunting with an outfitter sponsored license.

Things are coming full circle. The OSL is gone, but now the point system is heavily slanted towards NR who will hunt with an outfitter.

If I was an absentee landowner who didn't want to deal with block management or public hunting, things are now better for me because I can 1) lease to an outfitter who will patrol my land and 2) if/when I do want to hunt I'll jump ahead of the masses because I get 2 points per year in comparison to their 1.

I agree with @DougStickney. Pass it if you want. I fail to see how it addresses landowner relations with resident landowners. It doesn't really address anything meaningful that will markedly affect elk hunting in MT in my humble opinion. In fact, it lends more incentive to harbor wildlife than the current system. As I mentioned earlier, it certainly WILL lead to less public land competition, but with current season structures there is no way in hell elk habits are going to drastically change to where they begin utilizing public land much differently than they currently do.

 

[Luke_with_a_lab]

MOGA testifying in support of a bill that only harms their members financially and PERC walking back from their preference for transferable tags is significant progress in my mind.

I dont know much about PERC, what is their angle in all of this? What was their reason for supporting transferable tags?

I looked at their website and it says "Our current initiatives focus on market approaches to wildlife conservation and improving public lands management". What exactly do they mean by market approaches?

 

[TheJason]

I dont know much about PERC, what is their angle in all of this? What was their reason for supporting transferable tags?

I looked at their website and it says "Our current initiatives focus on market approaches to wildlife conservation and improving public lands management". What exactly do they mean by market approaches?

Show me the $$$$$$

 

[Elky Welky]

The Missoula Current article on the hearing is very informative:

https://missoulacurrent.com/bill-tags-landowners/

 

[mtmuley]

, but with current season structures there is no way in hell elk habits are going to drastically change to where they begin utilizing public land much differently than they currently do.

This cracked me up. I've said this before on this very site and was told I was wrong. mtmuley

 

[cgasner1]

I find it hard to believe that only 219 ranches would qualify for this

 

[TheJason]

This cracked me up. I've said this before on this very site and was told I was wrong. mtmuley

Who told you that?

I believe it was Ken Hamlin who had data from about 30 years ago which showed elk movements/migrations in some areas were highly influenced by seasonality and not weather.

 

[mtmuley]

Who told you that?

I believe it was Ken Hamlin who had data from about 30 years ago which showed elk movements/migrations in some areas were highly influenced by seasonality and not weather.

More than one person. Was a couple years ago on a landowner bitchfest thread. Weather? Thought we were talking hunting pressure. mtmuley

 

[TheJason]

More than one person. Was a couple years ago on a landowner bitchfest thread. Weather? Thought we were talking hunting pressure. mtmuley

We are talking about hunting pressure. Hamlins study showed elk packed up and migrated before hunting season to a safe haven, even though there was no weather that would trigger a long migration.

 

[mtmuley]

We are talking about hunting pressure. Hamlins study showed elk packed up and migrated before hunting season to a safe haven, even though there was no weather that would trigger a long migration.

We are talking different scenarios I guess. The elk I am talking about rarely leave the private land they are on. Even when hunted. mtmuley

 

[SAJ-99]

I find it hard to believe that only 219 ranches would qualify for this

It was 213, but no worries. Why do you think it is low? 2500 acres is 3.9sq miles. Seems like a significant chunk of land.

Assume 213 qualify. How many participate? half? I think using 250 is a decent estimate (some get 0, some get 2,3,4). 17,700 minus 250 is 17,450. 250 spend 10 days in field, that is 2,500 hunter days. Again, not even a rounding error when people say "17k NR tags".

Per @Ben Lamb 's post
"..this could potentially see between 25500 and 35700 fewer hunter days on public land and publicly accessible lands..."

There is a significant difference between these two numbers. I have no idea who is right, or closer to being right, but the numbers sort of matter when they are core to the argument. When I saw Ben's post I thought the numbers seem high, but the assumptions might make sense. Just trying to square the circle.

 

[Elky Welky]

It was 213, but no worries. Why do you think it is low? 2500 acres is 3.9sq miles. Seems like a significant chunk of land.

Assume 213 qualify. How many participate? half? I think using 250 is a decent estimate (some get 0, some get 2,3,4). 17,700 minus 250 is 17,450. 250 spend 10 days in field, that is 2,500 hunter days. Again, not even a rounding error when people say "17k NR tags".

Per @Ben Lamb 's post
"..this could potentially see between 25500 and 35700 fewer hunter days on public land and publicly accessible lands..."

There is a significant difference between these two numbers. I have no idea who is right, or closer to being right, but the numbers sort of matter when they are core to the argument. When I saw Ben's post I thought the numbers seem high, but the assumptions might make sense. Just trying to square the circle.

@JLS MT-BHA did a GIS study, this is from their FB page:


"We hired a GIS analyst and found 554 parcels >2,500 acres owned by nonresidents. But once we remove duplicate owners and the properties in permitted areas, we find only 213 landowners who would be eligible.

And then, of these 213 – which are mostly LLC, corporations, partnerships, and timber companies – how many would qualify for an individual license or ones they could transfer to family members? Not all of them.

And how many of those nonresident landowners actually hunt? Not all of them.

For those who do hunt, how many of them aren’t already drawing tags? Draw odds for nonresidents – regardless of preference points – is better than 50% for elk, even better for deer. So most are already drawing tags anyways.

Finally, how many of these out-of-state landowners are currently hunting public land who would then be moved to private if this bill passes? Our guess is that most who own this much property are likely hunting their own private oasis already. So we can't count all of them as hunters who would move from public to private.

All in all, the number of hunters this would move to from public to private is nominal, likely just a fraction of 1% of the 59,000 existing nonresident deer and elk hunters."

 

[Schaaf]

But once we remove duplicate owners and the properties in permitted areas

Why would they remove people from permitted areas? They are eligible.

 

[Elky Welky]

Good question that was also raised on their site, and this is how it was answered:

"We included the total numbers (also low), then we removed permitted areas because there's no guarantee these will be drawn, and we can't honestly point to those as folks who will be moved from public to private."

 

[Schaaf]

Good question that was also raised on their site, and this is how it was answered:

"We included the total numbers (also low), then we removed permitted areas because there's no guarantee these will be drawn, and we can't honestly point to those as folks who will be moved from public to private."

So for talking points it was better to artificially represent a lower number than the actual number. Got it.

 

[Elky Welky]

So for talking points it was better to artificially represent a lower number than the actual number. Got it.

If that's how you want to see it, sure. I know you are pretty dug in at this point.

But to everyone else, it makes perfect sense not to dwell in the realm of speculation, and look to what is certain. You can't guarantee tags in permitted areas will be drawn, so why include them if the selling point of this bill is that it will move hunters from public to private?

 

[SAJ-99]

So for talking points it was better to artificially represent a lower number than the actual number. Got it.

Do you know how the number Ben cited was determined? Even the low end seemed aggressive to me, but it may have a reasonable justification. And even using 550 number it is hard to imagine they hunt 45days every year. I guess my point would be we all toture the numbers to say what we want them to.

 

[Labman]

Good question that was also raised on their site, and this is how it was answered:

"We included the total numbers (also low), then we removed permitted areas because there's no guarantee these will be drawn, and we can't honestly point to those as folks who will be moved from public to private."

Why didn’t BHA reference the most recent and actual number from 2022, it’s easy to obtain. In total it was most recently 95% or 73/77, so not a guarantee overall but damn close.
Funny how they could hire a GIS analyst to figure out a number that is somewhat difficult to obtain but couldn’t look at a readily available spreadsheet for some simple and accurate data. Does that number not fit in with their narrative so it was conveniently left out?
That’s the rub I have with some of these outfits, they just utilize the data that fits their agenda they are trying to push, never mentioning the data that doesn’t help to further their goals.

 

[Nameless Range]

I have no idea which GIS person BHA hired. To be clear, I don't think we can trust any numbers thrown out there on either side of the debate with a whole lotta confidence.

The Montana Cadastral dataset has an attribute for the tax address of all landowners in Montana. Using those landowners whose tax address is not Montana, who, when all their parcels are dissolved into a single multipart polygon, own more than 2499 acres, I get 591 "nonresident" (based on the tax address assumption) landowners owning more than 2499 acres.


That list of landowners and the acres they own, is here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ouid=113353896550246742805&rtpof=true&sd=true



Here's a rough map.

Sketchy data in, sketchy data out, but for a GIS person, a 10 minute exercise. The software I use is a personal license, so I do not and can not do it for money or political reasons, just for personal interest. My own reasons for supporting the bill are more broad than the actual negative or positive potentially purported affects it may have.