Non resident Landowner incentive.

[rogerthat]

Yeah, flippant typing on my part. Few, or at least the minority, want what you describe. All you have to do is read the post on the comment section on the Elk management work. I think this thread is about dead and the point has been made. Most MT residents are in the camp of wanting to hunt for 100days per year with 3 different weapons and then complain about their results for the remainder of the year. "Compromise" was giving NR landowners with very large blocks tags to hunt only their property and reducing the NR pool of people who might hunt public. And everyone, MOGA, FWP, UPOM, and some sportsman groups claimed to have worked together on this and declare a victory.

My analogy, the boat is sinking and 4 of the 5 people in the boat have agreed on who should get thrown out with the belief it will sink slower.

I don’t disagree with a thing you have said. It appears west wide that will be the trend. I think it’s a symptom of a diminishing resource and increasing demand. The NR’s with the smallest voice (diy) in the state will get the shaft first. Eventually when it’s bad enough NR hunting will probably be completely cut across the west states or only NR outfitted clients (squeaky wheel) as the west continues to populate and it’s residents are unwilling to see their opportunities diminish even as the resource does.

For me, our states management has become so poor and I see my prior prognostication as inevitable that I guess I am willing to see my ideology (that I believe we share generally) get violated. If the elk coalition can do some positive things as they say, I see them as the only hope at this point.

They say hope dies last. I am mostly in the coffin in Montana. Just waiting for someone to pull the lever. Pretty damn depressing

 

[antlerradar]

Ha, that sure makes it seem like this will be a fun administrative task.

Residents that have been avoiding taxes suddenly saying they aren’t actually residents; probably some non residents using their ranches as a residence overnight deciding to be honest about where they actually live out of state

I was looking at one particular parcel on nameless's map. can not be sure as I could got get the detail I needed.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

Painful to see the amount of energy wasted behind the scenes by groups fighting over this low impact bill. It is so low on my priority list when it comes to attacks on easements, Habitat Montana, stream access, and access funding, that I've not really bothered to invest much energy in it. Yet here we are, 14 pages into it on Hunt Talk, hours of meetings and phone calls from both sides, and mountains of emails, all of which could be better spent on issues that will really matter.

I have little expectation of this bill moving pressure from public to private. It will have some impact towards that end, but not enough for changes in hunting pressure to be the primary reason to support or oppose the bill.

A few things sway me. First, this legislative session has been far less venomous than the past due to the work the MT Elk Coalition has done in outreach to partners. This bill was part of that package that was compromised on and I support it as part of that effort to dampen the heat we saw last session. So far it is working.

Second, the likelihood of transferrable tags in Montana is low, at least for deer and elk when most our state is general tag areas. Non-residents draw 75% of the time. That is unlike states with big landowner voucher programs where NR odds are often 5%< and those states are all limited entry draw with no general tags, creating huge scarcity for the demand for NR hunting.

I'd ask anyone to walk through the exercise of what value there is to landowners for a transferrable tag system beyond the few limited entry units we have. You'd have to ask this question - "What value would a NR pay for a tag that they can draw 75% of the time in the general NR draw?"

The answer - The NR would not pay very much when they can draw 75% of the time, with an exception for our few limited entry tags. I've walked through that exercise. In MT, a landowner voucher program with such low benefit hardly seems worth the political battle, which is why we haven't seen such a bill and we probably won't see such until we get to limited entry draw and NR draw rates down under 20%. A bill might get introduced some day, but for it to pass would burn a lot of political capital for very low benefit for landowners.

If we are truly worried about the principle of landowner tags and democratic allocation under the NAMWC, we should be "hair on fire" for giving 15% of our limited entry tags to landowners and getting nothing in return - not higher objective, not more tolerance, not access to locked up public land, nothing. I admire and support "the principle" in question, but I also can see the selectivity of how the principle gets applied/supported/ignored depending upon the situation.

Lastly, many seem to ignore that in this legislature one side has a Super Majority with some rabid anti-wildlifers among the furthest fringe of their Super Majority. Hunters are not in a position of power. If these groups saw enough benefit for transferrable tags or other offensive programs, they have the votes to get it passed by Saturday morning. When dealing from a minority position against some who can use the bludgeon of a Super Majority, you make progress with compromise and relationships. This bill, as part of that pre-session planning, seems to have helped the tone of the session be a lot friendlier than I expected from the vindictive arm of the Super Majority. That is the reason I support this bill, a bill surely not worthy of the fits around the bill.

If the coalition of hunting groups gets fractured this easily, due to a bill of such minor consequence as this bill, mostly on the basis of principle, the future for a united hunting front in Montana is very bleak. As is the likelihood of hunters being able to work in cooperative ways with others groups who we might sometimes have differences with and who happen to be better connected to the elected levers of power than are hunters.

Carry on ......

Randy, as usual your post gives me a lot to ponder, and I’m not done pondering. For instance, I had not really thought through the value of transferrable tag in areas with a 75% draw rate. I do have some corollary perspectives and questions to put in front of you and this group, however. I’m not putting them out there to say that anyone is wrong—this is genuinely meant to stimulate conversation among a group of engaged people.

I agree completely in principle with cooling the dialogue and having more negotiation and compromise. And I think there are ways to disagree honorably both within the conservation community and with those well outside it. I do think some of the rancor and current divisions are no more about the substance of, say, HB 635 than they are about process. The most recent example of poor process most of us witnessed at the last 635 hearing: Sen. Fuller’s very sad attempt at a gotcha moment on BHA’s Kevin Farron. The senator didn’t know about that event; someone shared it with him. And that was unnecessary and corrosive. It deepened internal division between traditional partners. I’d point out that one reason a relatively inconsequential bill with good intent received so much energy is that its story and staging do point to matters of great long-term consequence here.

I do still think it’s worth considering exactly what the path could look like from multiple tags for a single non-resident LO—a first, to my knowledge, and very different from the single tag or permit a resident landowner may get with preference—to multiple transferrable tags for R or NR landowners. I bring that up out of what some might consider an overabundance of caution—but that mental exercise is worthwhile in the sense of scenario modeling for strategic planning. I’m first to note that it can devolve into selling the politics of fear, which we see all too much of. I’ve been beating the drum pretty hard that the evisceration of the NAM in NM and UT didn’t happen in one cut but instead in incremental, small bloodlettings. The fact is, I need to learn more about those steps and those individual histories to refine my thinking, and I’m trying to. I’m not aware of any robust write-up by a calmer head, a la Andrew McKean or Hal H, and I’d be grateful if someone could point one or more out. I’ve been reaching out instead to individuals in those states, but as a volunteer my time is limited, and it’s clear I need to talk to more than one person.

You raise a good point about the NAM and resident landowner preference points. I have said earlier here that I consider them a toe over the line—maybe for worthy reasons, but a toe nonetheless—whereas I consider 635’s multiple tags, de facto guaranteed, to the largest NR LO’s more of a hard kick in the shins. Too much of the discussion, in my view, has only presented and considered the single tag a landowner of 2500+ acres would get—but the tags accrue with each additional 2500 acres. A landowner of 12,500 acres, 20 sections, gets 500% of the benefit the owner of the smaller parcel gets. That bears consideration, both in itself and as precedent, if you are concerned about the NAM. I haven’t heard a sound explanation of tags being awarded for every 2500 acres owned and why that was changed from the resident model.

Finally, a question to the group: since the R’s include some rabid anti-wildlifers, anti-conservation, and anti-access people in their ranks and their leadership, at what point do you give up on bridge-building and just work to get them replaced as elected representatives—which means candid explanations to busy resident hunters about representatives professing to be supporters of Montana hunters instead screwing them? Please note that I’m not talking at all about conservation-friendly, access-friendly, and hunter-friendly R’s (and they certainly exist); those are critical partners. And I throw conservation-averse and sportsman-averse Dems into my first category of people best replaced. And I put this out believing that you don’t have to replace all the extremists; you just need to replace a few for the word to get out that resident hunters demand elected reps who will represent them on more matters than just gun rights and culture war issues. Problems here exist on a continuum. I don’t believe one approach is appropriate for all points of that continuum—but I’m not sure where the thresholds or break points are. This is a sincere question I spend a lot of time considering.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

From today’s hearing on 635:

Jock Conyngham

Well, well. That’s a novel interpretation of the North American Model of Wildlife Management.

www.facebook.com

 

[Gerald Martin]

The angry face wasn’t at you Jock.

Apparently elk don’t cross property boundaries?

Is that elk his neighbors’ when it goes on their property?

 

[Gerald Martin]

Who is the guy speaking in that video clip?

 

[Jock Conyngham]

Who is the guy speaking in that video clip?

Senator John Fuller, R Kalispell. The same guy who went after Farron about his wife’s elk.

 

[Sdbeaupr]

Interesting a montana legislator would write a bill to benefit non residents and not his constituents that vote for him.

Idk the legislator or specifics, but I would say it may have something to do with his/her fundraising. Just a thought though.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

The angry face wasn’t at you Jock.

Apparently elk don’t cross property boundaries?

Is that elk his neighbors’ when it goes on their property?

I didn’t think the angry face was for me, Gerald, but thanks for your care.

And I have been thinking about your query about what the 635 naysayers suggest. I’m not ignoring it. Though I believe the devil is in the details, and I’m just smart enough to know that there are a lot of things I don’t know much about (my ex was very helpful in that regard), I lean hard currently toward relatively simple solutions. Cap NR tags and permits across the board at some smaller percentage of R tags and permits, along the lines of a bill now in legal review. Get serious about the 17K cap; no come home discounts, no relative discounts, no nothing (except active military—that’s inviolable with me and many others). Increase most tags, R and NR, somewhat and most permit fees significantly. Get the non-game people to pay their way with gear and hospitality taxes. Can’t say much more without looking at fiscal notes and talking with others more experienced and smarter than I—but I suspect complexity in this arena breeds battles and loopholes.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I didn’t think the angry face was for me, Gerald, but thanks for your care.

And I have been thinking about your query about what the 635 naysayers suggest. I’m not ignoring it. Though I believe the devil is in the details, and I’m just smart enough to know that there are a lot of things I don’t know much about (my ex was very helpful in that regard), I lean hard currently toward relatively simple solutions. Cap NR tags and permits across the board at some smaller percentage of R tags and permits, along the lines of a bill now in legal review. Get serious about the 17K cap; no come home discounts, no relative discounts, no nothing (except active military—that’s inviolable with me and many others). Increase most tags, R and NR, somewhat and most permit fees significantly. Get the non-game people to pay their way with gear and hospitality taxes. Can’t say much more without looking at fiscal notes and talking with others more experienced and smarter than I—but I suspect complexity in this arena breeds battles and loopholes.

Lots of great ideas in your suggestions. One thought about price increases right now. It’s not lack of money that is driving FWP’s mismanagement. I’m happy to pay more if there’s an actual budget crunch but from my perspective we are in a management situation that is driven by social issues not financial.

If price increases are solely a function of staying at the same level of funding for the department to offset a decrease in licenses sold then I would be supportive of a rate of cost increase directly proportional to the decrease in licenses available for purchase.

I am not okay with increased cost and no decrease in license sales or improvement in the quality of wildlife management policies.

 

[Andrew Posewitz]

I find myself on the side opposing this bill. I think the results are assured after the committee vote on March 21, 2023, but I don’t want the inevitable to occur without directly commenting on this bill. For those who didn’t watch the hearing, Senator Fuller literally handed over ownership of the public resource to the landowner, and soon they will have the tags to prove it. I think it gives away something incredibly important in exchange for vague promises. Hunters in Montana have an ignoble history of agreeing to give up something real in exchange for vague promises. I think we should stop doing this.

It pains me to disagree with Big Fin, for whom I have a mountain of respect, but I believe this bill to be much higher impact than it appears. In my opinion, this bill hits at the very heart of hunters, our heritage and our values. While allocating this number of tags might feel small, the philosophy that underlies the bill is potentially disastrous and we should be eyes wide open about being led to this place and about who is leading us to this place.

I have seen some discussion of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation as it pertains to this bill and I have seen a number of what I believe to be direct misinterpretations in an effort to twist support for this bill. Rather than get into that, I would offer a touch of history. My father, Jim Posewitz, wrote a book in 1999, titled “Inherit the Hunt.” This book contains many of the underpinnings that would lead to my dad’s collaboration with Dr. Valerius Geist in creating the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation a few years after Inherit the Hunt was published. I was privileged to do a bunch of research for this book as noted in the dedication.

Many have asked what my dad might think, we don’t have to guess since he has spoken directly to the issues raised by HB 635. For those who value my father, his philosophy and his relentless pursuit of the democracy of the wild, I point you to these two quotes from Inherit the Hunt nearly 25 years ago.

Page 106 from the hard back version – “There are more serious threats to hunting than a handful of anti-hunters making a living off of their advocacy. The most ominous threat is carried by those who would create the equivalent of a new royalty of the hunt in North America.” and “To be true to our heritage, we must reject the notion of securing advantages in the hunt by denying opportunity to others. If we have a cancer in our collective body, this is it.”

From page 109 - in speaking of political influence invading wildlife management – “Thus, it is no surprise when the allocation of hunting opportunity takes on a design to favor minority interests that have influence, when hunting permits are sold to the highest bidder, and when commercial interests are given privilege. These actions undermine the principle of equal opportunity and equal treatment fundamental to our democracy and the public interest in wildlife.”

There are very few promises that would cause me to abandon my dad’s writings and the vague promises of HB 635 certainly don’t rise to that threshold. This bill brings directly advocates for what my father believed to be “The most ominous threat to hunting..”

Please keep your eyes wide open as to what we are giving up, and those who are asking you to give it up.

 

[DFS]

This is exactly why things will never improve for wildlife. We constantly fight for more and more without regard to the resource. Outfitters want more, landowners want more, sportsman’s want more. In the end when none of us agree we just get more add ons. More tags, longer seasons, more opportunity all to the detriment of the resource. The North America model doesn’t mean much in Montana anymore with the lack of management.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

The bill passed on 3rd reading yesterday. It was a great day for Mark Taylor, lobbyist for MOGA, the Wilks brothers, and the Yellowstone Club as well as one non-profit that pushed it relentlessly.
https://missoulacurrent.com/viewpoint-helena-lobbyists/

 

[Jock Conyngham]

Second reading was 27-23. Not a slam dunk. Third, after a great deal of lobbying, was 29-21. Lots of people in the hook and bullet conservation community aren’t speaking to one another, and there is a great deal of distrust and anger inside and outside the elk coalition. It’s a crappy situation for no significant gain to anyone but those NR landowners with 2500-12500 acres and a couple of lobbyists. They made out pretty great.

 

[Elky Welky]

Second reading was 27-23. Not a slam dunk. Third, after a great deal of lobbying, was 29-21. Lots of people in the hook and bullet conservation community aren’t speaking to one another, and there is a great deal of distrust and anger inside and outside the elk coalition. It’s a crappy situation for no significant gain to anyone but those NR landowners with 2500-12500 acres and a couple of lobbyists. They made out pretty great.

Last stop is the governor's desk. Regardless of many other arguments for and against this likely-to-become-law, it's worth considering what the "incentive" here will really do. Today's viewpoint by Joe Perry is worth reading:

https://missoulacurrent.com/viewpoint-public-access/

 

[rogerthat]

Last stop is the governor's desk. Regardless of many other arguments for and against this likely-to-become-law, it's worth considering what the "incentive" here will really do. Today's viewpoint by Joe Perry is worth reading:

https://missoulacurrent.com/viewpoint-public-access/

One thing Joe failed to mention is the tags are only valid on their private land or did this get struck from the final passed version? I hope not because that is key to me

 

[Elky Welky]

One thing Joe failed to mention is the tags are only valid on their private land or did this get struck from the final passed version? I hope not because that is key to me

The bill is still in its original form. It does continue to beg the question (discussed ad nauseum earlier in this thread) of if moving somewhere between 0-2550 NR landowners (we all got hung up on how many people this would affect, at the end of the day that range is all we can set in stone. The upper end is purely theoretical, because there aren't that many NR landowners that own over 2500 acres. We won't really know for sure until it becomes law) from public to only private is worth the trade.

My personal 2 cents is that, no matter what practical effect this bill has, it wasn't worth it for what it's done to our community.

 

[BuzzH]

One thing Joe failed to mention is the tags are only valid on their private land or did this get struck from the final passed version? I hope not because that is key to me

Like I pointed out the chance of them only hunting their deeded ground is about close to zero. I can assure you, any animal on public land within their 2500+ acres is going to be dead.

 

[bigsky2]

The bill is still in its original form. It does continue to beg the question (discussed ad nauseum earlier in this thread) of if moving somewhere between 0-2550 NR landowners (we all got hung up on how many people this would affect, at the end of the day that range is all we can set in stone. The upper end is purely theoretical, because there aren't that many NR landowners that own over 2500 acres. We won't really know for sure until it becomes law) from public to only private is worth the trade.

My personal 2 cents is that, no matter what practical effect this bill has, it wasn't worth it for what it's done to our community.

My 2 cents is that it wasn't worth all the attention that it drew.

 

[rogerthat]

Like I pointed out the chance of them only hunting their deeded ground is about close to zero. I can assure you, any animal on public land within their 2500+ acres is going to be dead.

I agree. It’s about opportunity cost for me. It’s 2500 less tags to nonresidents that likely only had access to public land which I know is a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things and won’t be overall noticeable. However sometimes all you need is one un-impacted hunt. To me its a little like the boy pulling ants out of the swollen creek after their ant pile washes away in a big rain. The father says “what are you doing? You’re wasting your time. What you’re doing doesn’t matter.” The boy says “well it mattered to this ant.” As he releases it on to dry ground. We need to start somewhere. Maybe this is a start.