Non resident Landowner incentive.

[Ben Lamb]

You’re trying to turn tags sales into hunter numbers. They aren’t the same.

Also, we don’t know how many nonresident hunters we have as our process is so messed up that we could have 34,000 or 52,0000 but we don’t know. Hunter days would be a much more comparable statistic. It is much easier to see how many residents we have.

If we take 2,550 of these people and move them to private land then great. Also, if any of these people are purchasing a B tag as well then that’s less pressure on public. If these people are drawing permits in whatever unit they own land then that again is less people on public.

The hunter day metric is the one to look at. The total number of license sales also includes upland, waterfowl, turkey, bear, wolf, lion, etc. Limiting hunter days and improving harvest success rates leads to better outcomes for all. If we can't get a cap on reduced price NR licenses through the House FWP committee, then I'm not sure we should look sideways at a potential 10% reduction in NR hunting pressure on public land.

454 is over the quota premium tags for landowners who trade cow elk hunting for them. 635 is inside the cap, and takes pressure off public land and doesn't add any new licenses.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

The hunter day metric is the one to look at. The total number of license sales also includes upland, waterfowl, turkey, bear, wolf, lion, etc. Limiting hunter days and improving harvest success rates leads to better outcomes for all. If we can't get a cap on reduced price NR licenses through the House FWP committee, then I'm not sure we should look sideways at a potential 10% reduction in NR hunting pressure on public land.

454 is over the quota premium tags for landowners who trade cow elk hunting for them. 635 is inside the cap, and takes pressure off public land and doesn't add any new licenses.

No, Ben—the license sales in Brett’s article were NR big game only. That’s clear. And hunter days are the more important metric, sure, but they are less precise. Agree on the goal. I don’t agree that we are potentially reducing NR hunting pressure 10%. That doesn’t hold up in the face of this flood of NR tags.

And, while I loathe 454 and want to see it die a quiet death, the 3 additional tags awarded, if they go to NR’s, are within the cap. Now it appears we have both, and if that happens it will be almost impossible to make one go away.

 

[peterk1234]

I’m mildly in support of this bill for a couple of reasons:
1. These landowners are paying big state taxes and many improve the habitat for wildlife.
2. It only allocates tags from the allocated non-res pool. No add ons and they are good for deeded property only.
3. We can’t win everything. If this pacifies the wealthy NR LO we shoudn’t see more horrible bills like HB 505 from the 2021 legislature, which damn near passed!!! I know a landowner that bought a ranch for $12M, and he couldn’t hunt his own property every year. There has to be some give from us for them to respect the MT sportsman.
4. It could reduce the pressure on public land and the number of leased up properties by big game outfitters. The outfitters have a huge voice is the legislature and greed drives their motives, might check their growth. Let the outfitters and wealthy NR LOs deal with that between themselves for a change instead of both of them opposing us. Maybe a stretch there but who knows.

Here is my issue. I am getting the sense that there is tremendous pressure to make this state a private getaway for the uber rich. I have nothing against the wealthy, I applaud their success. But I have learned that most don't like to share. Heck, our Governor is offended when somebody is in the river in front of his house.

There is no such thing as compromise in politics anymore. Give an inch, they take a mile.

If you do not live here full time, you are a non resident. Period. Great, you own a chunk of land and a huge house. But you are paying income taxes somewhere else. You want the privileges that come with this wonderful state? Move here full time and pay your income taxes to this state. They probably pay squat in real estate taxes because they are "farming". So sick of this crap.

Sincerely,

Diehard conservative that is going to vote very differently in the next local election. Any R local politicians reading this, take note. I'm not alone on this matter.

 

[Carnage2011]

No, Ben—the license sales in Brett’s article were NR big game only. That’s clear. And hunter days are the more important metric, sure, but they are less precise. Agree on the goal. I don’t agree that we are potentially reducing NR hunting pressure 10%. That doesn’t hold up in the face of this flood of NR tags.

And, while I loathe 454 and want to see it die a quiet death, the 3 additional tags awarded, if they go to NR’s, are within the cap.

Jock, I’m not trying to call you out non stop but you are either twisting things or you really don’t know. 454 tags are an additional 15% and are not within the cap. No debate about that…zero.

 

[Nameless Range]

Jock, I’m not trying to call you out non stop but you are either twisting things or you really don’t know. 454 tags are an additional 15% and are not within the cap. No debate about that…zero.

It's 10% right?

I don't want to get sideways on the OP of this thread, but one of the dirty truths of the 454 program is that we can say that that 10% is "in addition to" the cap, but that isn't the way biology works in respect to elk bull counts. Whether in the back of their minds or out in the open, Biologists will be taking that additional 10% into consideration when setting the quota us plebes will have access to - particularly as the pools of applicants fill up in more and more HDs to gain access to this 10% and harvest bulls over the years.

It's so abused. Landowners not even eligible for landowner preference are getting 454 permits, landowners who don't even have elk most of the season on their places are getting them, landowners who have FWP conservation easements that already allow access are getting them. And in exchange for what? We should be disincentivizing the 454 program as it is currently written, in my mind.

Bulls for Billionaires - MT EQC Meeting today 1:30 PM

https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/commission/2022/jun-23/eha/c3-eha-master-list---final.pdf 37 applicants this year compared to 13 last year. Link isn't working for me. Anyone know how to get them? EDIT: Found em https://fwp.mt.gov/aboutfwp/commission/meeting

www.hunttalk.com

 

[Labman]

In the business world we call this tripping over $100 bills to save a penny. With a population of 1.12M and a 1.5% growth rate we essentially add enough people to the state to make a new Miles City and Livingston (~17k) every year. The portion of those new residents going to WalMart and buying an OTC General deer/elk/bear tag dwarf the numbers of people this will keep from contributing to the public land overcrowding issue. Not against the Bill, I just think if the issue is overcrowding on public lands there are only a few real solutions that will solve the problem. It’s a bandaid fix when a tourniquet is required.

 

[brockel]

What’s to keep these license holders from also hunting public?

The rest of the hunting community piss pounding the public should help keep them off it

 

[Jock Conyngham]

Jock, I’m not trying to call you out non stop but you are either twisting things or you really don’t know. 454 tags are an additional 15% and are not within the cap. No debate about that…zero.

Carnage, I’m good, but thanks. Certainly mot trying to twist anything but believe the details are important. I’m guessing my wording was poor; trying to get the kid to school. The landowner’s 454 is on top of the cap, but the three additional access tags, if they go to NR’s, are within the cap. That’s my point. And since FWP picks two and the landowner picks one, it’s an administrative nightmare for the agency. It’s a godawful program.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

In the business world we call this tripping over $100 bills to save a penny. With a population of 1.12M and a 1.5% growth rate we essentially add enough people to the state to make a new Miles City and Livingston (~17k) every year. The portion of those new residents going to WalMart and buying an OTC General deer/elk/bear tag dwarf the numbers of people this will keep from contributing to the public land overcrowding issue. Not against the Bill, I just think if the issue is overcrowding on public lands there are only a few real solutions that will solve the problem. It’s a bandaid fix when a tourniquet is required.

Couldn’t agree more

 

[brockel]

Not sure I agree with you on this one Ben. I can think of several ranches that have sold recently where one of the primary motivations of the new owner is to have a hunting ranch. It may seam like silly economics to spend 10 million on land when you could buy a near unlimited amount of quality elk hunts for the same money, but you also have to consider the new owners are also looking at owning a ranch as an investment. You can not underestimate the attractions of hunting on your own property and not having a guaranteed license was always at least a strike and often three strikes against Montana when compared to some other states. How many more NR landowners will give Montana a new look is hard to know, but it will be more, but likely not a flood.

Hay crop and number of cows is at the bottom of the listing

 

[peterk1234]

Hay crop and number of cows is at the bottom of the listing
View attachment 266918

Hunttalk group buy?

 

[brockel]

Hunttalk group buy?

If I had another $17,800,000 I’d buy it.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

Hunttalk group buy?

I’ll look around for a spare half mil and get back to you

 

[Ben Lamb]

Passed third reading 56-44. We picked up two yes votes.

 

[Eric Albus]

The hunter day metric is the one to look at. The total number of license sales also includes upland, waterfowl, turkey, bear, wolf, lion, etc. Limiting hunter days and improving harvest success rates leads to better outcomes for all. If we can't get a cap on reduced price NR licenses through the House FWP committee, then I'm not sure we should look sideways at a potential 10% reduction in NR hunting pressure on public land.

454 is over the quota premium tags for landowners who trade cow elk hunting for them. 635 is inside the cap, and takes pressure off public land and doesn't add any new licenses.

I reconciled myself through it this way, if we reward NR landowners with a caveat, they may well be more likely to keep ranches intact, rather than create “ranchettes”.

 

[Ben Lamb]

In the business world we call this tripping over $100 bills to save a penny. With a population of 1.12M and a 1.5% growth rate we essentially add enough people to the state to make a new Miles City and Livingston (~17k) every year. The portion of those new residents going to WalMart and buying an OTC General deer/elk/bear tag dwarf the numbers of people this will keep from contributing to the public land overcrowding issue. Not against the Bill, I just think if the issue is overcrowding on public lands there are only a few real solutions that will solve the problem. It’s a bandaid fix when a tourniquet is required.

100% agree that the amount of pressure on public land isn't fixed by this bill. Season setting and the new EMP are where we start to work on hunter distribution and season length. Combining these bills - all of them - with significant change in seasons structure is how we start to peel this back to a manageable issue.

I'm seeing calls to try and make 635 a forced access bill, i.e. you only get a license if you allow access. That will ensure that nobody uses this tool. Landowners have been clear that forcing the access issue isn't working and as a result, we've seen a lot of land taken out of Block Management. Raising the cap, coupled with raising the hunter use day cap brings more people in to block management. There's an extra $7 million in the budget for Block Management as well, which we fought to keep in subcommittee.

Same with SB 281 - the bill, in conjunction with season setting, is how this all works together. IF you are trying to kill a single bill, then you simply message on that one piece. If you are trying to work with a broad consituency and push the start of a new way of doing business that brings people together, you pass this package.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

Last night I referenced talking today with Jim Posewitz’s son, Andrew, who I worked with on the Montana Public Trust Coalition. Randy did a podcast with him on that effort. He sent a looong email to me this morning. I don’t speak for him and don’t quite track some of this, so I’m cutting and pasting the whole thing:

“Interesting discussion and thanks for the heads up on the bill and the thread. I read the hunttalk thread this morning and this bill bothers me for a host of reasons and I will do my best to articulate them. I don’t have a ton of time, so apologies for stream of consciousness.

I am certain my dad would have opposed this bill. I have read through the string and here are the items I find most troubling and philosophically inconsistent with my father’s views and teachings.

1. This bill is written to serve commercial purposes. It does not serve the resource. Hunters for generations put the resource first, even at the expense of their individual opportunity. This bill deviates from the very thing that made the North American Model the unique success it has been. Hunters put the resource first and themselves second, this is a reversal of that success.

2. Hunters in Montana have been a north star on commercialization historically. Outfitter guarantees were removed by ballot measure of this reason. We have proudly resisted the movements to commercialize. Recently we have begun seeing an effort to have wildlife policy written to satisfy commercial interests. History tells us what will happen when we monetize this.

3. There are many perversions of the North American Model out there as people have twisted the words ever so slightly to match their own values. Don’t fall for that; this is a direct move to commercializing wildlife. Go to the original work from Dr. Geist (even when he tries to refer you to my dad’s work), before people started twisting it around to serve their purposes.

4. The debate of better or worse than 454 is a false debate. Both serve commercial purposes and send us back in time; towards a model of opportunity as a product of wealth or birthright. Regardless of what side you land on, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

5. The debates of resident vs non-resident, DIY vs guided are also false debates, each trying to claim right to the resource for commercial purposes, which is to be kept in trust for all of us. Opportunity should be afforded on an equal basis, not preferentially to landowners and or the wealthy which this bill does. Wild things owned by all citizens should not be “traded” between constituencies in exchange for anything, including money and access.

6. This is what happens when you put dealmakers in place to dictate resource management decisions. My dad believed viciously in what he termed the “democracy of the wild” and this bill flushes that down the drain by awarding tags on the basis of what dealmakers think is the best deal they can get for their individual constituents. This is where long term failure lives under the guise of short-term success. This is a step down the worst possible road for Montana and it saddens me to see any organizational support for this. This step is mimicking a step taken in all those states who have commercialized wildlife. Although I don’t like the split in the conservation community at the very moment when we ought to be coming together, eventually values slide too far out of alignment with our philosophy and our history to continue to collaborate.

I suspect as this becomes more well known, the remainder of the conservation community will rise to oppose this, it may not matter on this bill, but it will help guide us all going forward.”

 

[MTLivin]

Last night I referenced talking today with Jim Posewitz’s son, Andrew, who I worked with on the Montana Public Trust Coalition. Randy did a podcast with him on that effort. He sent a looong email to me this morning. I don’t speak for him and don’t quite track some of this, so I’m cutting and pasting the whole thing:

“Interesting discussion and thanks for the heads up on the bill and the thread. I read the hunttalk thread this morning and this bill bothers me for a host of reasons and I will do my best to articulate them. I don’t have a ton of time, so apologies for stream of consciousness.

I am certain my dad would have opposed this bill. I have read through the string and here are the items I find most troubling and philosophically inconsistent with my father’s views and teachings.

1. This bill is written to serve commercial purposes. It does not serve the resource. Hunters for generations put the resource first, even at the expense of their individual opportunity. This bill deviates from the very thing that made the North American Model the unique success it has been. Hunters put the resource first and themselves second, this is a reversal of that success.

2. Hunters in Montana have been a north star on commercialization historically. Outfitter guarantees were removed by ballot measure of this reason. We have proudly resisted the movements to commercialize. Recently we have begun seeing an effort to have wildlife policy written to satisfy commercial interests. History tells us what will happen when we monetize this.

3. There are many perversions of the North American Model out there as people have twisted the words ever so slightly to match their own values. Don’t fall for that; this is a direct move to commercializing wildlife. Go to the original work from Dr. Geist (even when he tries to refer you to my dad’s work), before people started twisting it around to serve their purposes.

4. The debate of better or worse than 454 is a false debate. Both serve commercial purposes and send us back in time; towards a model of opportunity as a product of wealth or birthright. Regardless of what side you land on, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

5. The debates of resident vs non-resident, DIY vs guided are also false debates, each trying to claim right to the resource for commercial purposes, which is to be kept in trust for all of us. Opportunity should be afforded on an equal basis, not preferentially to landowners and or the wealthy which this bill does. Wild things owned by all citizens should not be “traded” between constituencies in exchange for anything, including money and access.

6. This is what happens when you put dealmakers in place to dictate resource management decisions. My dad believed viciously in what he termed the “democracy of the wild” and this bill flushes that down the drain by awarding tags on the basis of what dealmakers think is the best deal they can get for their individual constituents. This is where long term failure lives under the guise of short-term success. This is a step down the worst possible road for Montana and it saddens me to see any organizational support for this. This step is mimicking a step taken in all those states who have commercialized wildlife. Although I don’t like the split in the conservation community at the very moment when we ought to be coming together, eventually values slide too far out of alignment with our philosophy and our history to continue to collaborate.

I suspect as this becomes more well known, the remainder of the conservation community will rise to oppose this, it may not matter on this bill, but it will help guide us all going forward.”

Hell yes I oppose all forms of privatization of wildlife. I wasn't around in Jim's hay day, but I did get to thank him once I realized who I was conversating with in the Helena gym hot tub, lol.

The problem I see in this argument now is that the privatization of wildlife isn't just starting, it is fully set in law in places like New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and now Montana. If this was 30+ years ago and MT calf/cow ranches still sold to MT calf/cow ranchers, most trailheads had very little or no hunting pressure each day, and non-resident hunting wasn’t advertised across every media imaginable, I would feel the same as you do. But times have changed rapidly and wealthy individuals have far more influence over many politicians than any of us as individuals. We saw HB 505 almost pass in 2021 (would have awarded 10 fully transferrable non-resident tags to landowners with 640 acres or more) and then we saw the proposed changes by our F&G commission to allow landowners to shoot bulls on private lands and reduce the bull tags the public could draw to hunt public lands. There was no Republican Supermajority at that time and we had a couple more commissioners that favored our opinions.

When you consider the possible outcomes of privatization of wildlife in Montana, I think we've done a damn good job at stopping the flood and only letting a few trickles get by. I view this bill as another trickle, but hopefully one that might reduce the pressure behind the damn and save us from a future flood.

 

[antlerradar]

He bought a ranch to be a cattleman first, and the hunting was a bonus.

The Montana Wildlife Federation issued this letter to House members last night.

Any one that buys a ranch to be a cattleman first in today's market is going to need therapy.

 

[Labman]

Art,
Absolutely the wildlife and the opportunity to hunt are big parts of the marketing schemes for real estate companies and these kinds of landowners are purchasing large spreads based on the habitat quality. As you note, that's an investment as well as it is an amenity. Land investments in Montana that are 640 acres and under are the ones that are primarily being used to game the landowner preference system as it is today. Someone buying 14,000 acres is buying far more than the potential license, even though that is part of the equation. Just like Theodore Roosevelt did in North Dakota: He bought a ranch to be a cattleman first, and the hunting was a bonus.

The Montana Wildlife Federation issued this letter to House members last night.

Ben, can you confirm some numbers in this letter? “From 2012 to 2022, Montana lost 13,000 resident hunters.”

Resident Conservation license sales went from ~220k in 2012 to ~287k in 2021. R elk (only) licenses dropped about 13k in that timeframe but when you factor in Sportsman’s with and W/o bear my quick math says R numbers went up about +10k in that timeframe.