ELK MANAGEMENT LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE ADVANCES

Montanans deserve a voice in the management of our elk.

For many Montanans, elk hunting isn’t just a hobby or a way of putting food on the table: it’s a part of our family traditions, heritage, and identity. However, our traditions and opportunities are changing.

With more restrictions on public access, changing land ownership dynamics, and increased concentrations of elk on private land, Montana elk hunting is undergoing a radical shift. 

Partly because of those dynamics, a Montana public land hunter has only a 13 % chance of putting a bull elk in the freezer. According to FWP, some districts in Northwest Montana require more than 530 hunter days to harvest a single elk. Meanwhile, let's not forget that our wildlife is publicly owned as guaranteed by Montana's constitution. Our predecessors intended wildlife management to be a shared responsibility among our citizens; elk cannot be bought, owned, or sold by private interests. Fixing Montana’s elk distribution problem doesn’t fall to landowners, FWP, or hunters alone.

While recent elk policy changes have been fast and furious, political interference in our wildlife management is nothing new. Politicians continue to think they know better than the Montanans who spend months hunting. Over the past few years, we’ve seen politicians in Helena introduce bills that legalize transferable tags, defund wildlife management and habitat work, threaten public lands, reduce the ability of citizens to engage in the season-setting process, and weaken input from hunters while amplifying the power of political appointees. Unfortunately, special interests are winning out over everyday Montanans when it comes to our collective management responsibilities. The process is broken.

 Elk management needs to return to the Montana way of doing things.

Throughout 2022, we’ll be hearing from local Montanans about what they want to see reflected in Montana’s Elk Management Plan. Our wildlife is owned by all Montanans. That means our neighbors who farm and ranch and those who outfit and guide need to be a part of this conversation. Our commitment is to stay true to our values while working with individual producers and trade organizations to find the middle ground. Based on these conversations, we aim to develop practical tools for elk management. Our goal is twofold: a) to pull together a citizen's proposal that outlines more equitable and sustainable elk management policies than currently exists and b) to advance legislation that seeks to solve contentious wildlife management issues rather than exacerbating them.

 But we’re not going to do this alone. We ask you to join us.