It's paramount to keep these bullet points in mind as the progress of the bill unfolds. It was obvious yesterday there was a concerted effort to show residents this bill helps them. If you heard Sen. Hertz's softball question he lobbed to Minard, you saw it in action.One thing often repeated yesterday was that this does not affect Montana Residents negatively. Basic statistics in the face of increasing demand for a resource makes it obvious how it affects the NR DIY hunter, but to organize my thoughts and to better make the case of a resident's opposition to a legislature that doesn't seem to care about NRs because their opinions are easy to write off, I think it would be good to convey how it would affect Montana residents:
My quick thoughts:
-Residents who have NR friends and family who come out to hunt with them but don't pay someone to take them hunting will have a much more difficult time doing that as the pool of licenses for which equal opportunity in the drawing process exists has shrunk and demand for that pool increases.
-Access to private land elk is ever-decreasing, and this does nothing to help that, and likely will exacerbate it
-It increases the cap of NR licenses by 2,000, which of course will affect the resource that Resident hunters pursue
-Most important to this resident. The wildlife of Montana are managed in trust for Montanans. Montanans have already stated that they do not believe guaranteeing portions of the resource to an industry is the method we would like our wildlife allocated by. This reverses our will.
If anyone has more points a resident can make as to how this bill affects residents, I would like to hear them. The fact of the matter as I see it is that one resident voice is worth hundreds of non resident ones to the politicians.
Montanans elect Montanans. If the opposition to this bill can dispel the myth that this somehow helps your average resident hunter, it becomes much more tenuous for Senators, House members and the Governor to throw their support behind it.