Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Backcountry hunters and anglers. ......???

I've been getting blasted by their ads and the latest is pretty rich. They are urging change of sage grouse habitat, but show healthy birds cohabititating with cattle.

Why would I want to kick the graze lease holder off the land if it's working out for all of us?

This ought to be entertaining...

Sure they sound like they legitimately care bout hunters and fisherman.

https://www.greendecoys.com/decoys/backcountry-hunters-and-anglers/

Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
One of the latest fronts in Big Green’s spider web

At a Glance

Environmentalist activism is the name of the game at BHA, and hunters and anglers are just the camouflage. BHA has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from environmentalist groups, and BHA executive director Land Tawney has a history of liberal election activism.
Background

Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA) represents itself as good-ole-boy outdoorsmen who simply want to hunt and fish and be left alone. But don’t be fooled. As evidenced by both its sources of funding and current leadership, BHA is nothing more than a big green activist organization pushing a radical environmentalist agenda.
Funding

When looking at BHA’s funding sources, it’s easy to forget they have anything to do with hunting and fishing at all. All of its primary donors have extensive ties to environmental activist organizations.

The largest donor is the Western Conservation Foundation, which gave $278,423 to BHA in 2011 and 2012 alone. WCF has given handsomely over the years to notorious environmentalists and animal rights activists, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Audubon Society, Earthjustice (the self-proclaimed “law firm of the environment”), and Climate Solutions, a major proponent of “global warming.” It has also contributed large sums to the Tides Center, funder of all things leftist. It’s hard to imagine Western Conservation Foundation would donate over a quarter of a million dollars to Backcountry Hunters and Anglers if it wasn’t an organization that shared those same ideological beliefs.

The next largest donor to BHA is the Wilburforce Foundation. From 2009 to 2013, Wilburforce gave a total of $110,000 to BHA for a variety of purposes. As with the Western Conservation Foundation, Wilburforce gives heavily to other notorious environmentalists, including the Environmental Law Institute, the Sierra Foundation, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Wilburforce’s executive director, Tim Greyhavens, previously worked for the Humane Society of the United States, a vegan activist organization with a PETA-like agenda. BHA also received a $69,000 donation in 2012 from Pew Charitable Trusts, which is famous for its ideological tilt. Other donors include the New Venture Fund ($30,000 total), Conservation Lands Foundation ($26,000 total), Lazar Foundation ($25,000 total), and The Brainerd Foundation ($8,000 total), whose mission is “to safeguard the environment and build broad citizen support for environmental protection.” As with WCF and Wilburforce, each of these organizations have deep connections with the environmental movement, which raises suspicions as to what BHA’s motivations truly are.
BHA Leadership

Not only do BHA’s primary donors have extensive ties to the environmentalist movement, but its leadership does as well. A number of top executives and board members currently work or previously worked for notorious environmental activists.

Most prominent is BHA executive director Land Tawney, who ran the liberal political action committee (PAC) calling itself the “Montana Hunters and Anglers Leadership Fund” (MHA). In 2012, this pop-up PAC spent $1.1 million against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Denny Rehberg, who was challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester. The liberal MHA also spent $500,000 in support of the libertarian candidate as a strategy of drawing votes away from the Republican. MHA received several hundred thousand dollars from the League of Conservation Voters, a liberal environmentalist group. Tawney is also a member of the Montana Sportsmen for Obama Committee and previously served as the National Grassroots Coordinator for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which, like BHA, is an environmentalist front that poses as a hunter and fisher group.

Taken together, BHA’s funding sources and leadership make clear that the interests of hunters and anglers are the least of their concerns. Environmentalist activism is the name of the game at BHA, and hunters and anglers are just the facade.

I have gladly given them, and will continue to send my $35 membership fee , along with Trout Unlimited and the TRCP and RMEF and Pheasants Forever. Because they do speak for ,and fight for things that are very important to me. I want to keep our Public Lands accessible and belonging to all of America and my kids and grand kids to use and enjoy. Clean water and public access to fish and hunt within the laws , without out paying a fee or asking permission, because we already own it .

I've seen the above statements by GreenDecoys before
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Green_Decoys

Seems like a front group for people and organizations who want to take and rape the resources from our public lands. Same type of opposition when T.R. first started to outline our National Forests and National Parks. T.R and Gifford Pinchot had a massive fight from Senators from Montana and Idaho at that time, who were also tied to the lumber and mining interests. There's a lot of good reading about those days that are very similar to now.
Just my .02

Yep. Greenies will "partner" with the BHA crowd for as long as it benefits them politically and financially. They're in it to win it, and the sportsman who view themselves as "reasonable," will become pawns in the Greenies war.

I was trying to decide last year if I would make a donation to Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. I came across the GreenDecoys webiste, and spent some time looking into the info they posted, as well as info that was pro BCHA. Two sources I found interesting were Steven Rinella on his Meateater podcast episode #22 http://www.themeateater.com/podcasts/podcastepisode022/ , then episode #52 on the Gritty Bowmen podcast http://www.grittybowmen.com/gritty-...her-jedi-mind-tricks-withty-stubblefield . I also called and talked with people at BCHA and went over their 990 tax exempt returns. In the end, I decided to support them. Look beyond the first couple of Google search results, then make up your mind for yourself.

They already are.

The second they took those checks to the bank.

Do they support Multiple Use?

As in the same Multiple Use Act that allows ranchers, hunters, fishermen, shooters, miners, and loggers on the same public land...?

If not, you wake up with your OWN throat cut one morning.

I belong to BHA and do so cautiously but outside of this organization there are few others that want to keep our wild country wild. Within our chapter,hunting is the central obligation and I don't know that any animal rights people would dare attend a meeting. At least someone is speaking for backcountry hunters like myself.

Sounds kind of elitist to me. But, I've never been to a meeting.

Do you gather from the meeting that they support multiple use of the land?

is this one of these new land rights things where
the big mean rancher has too many acres and won't
let the poor lil' "sportman" on the land to hike
and bike ride and hunt and fish for free ?

It goes far deeper than that.

Ranching on public land doesn't give the rancher the right to close public roads and access to public lands. The rancher can lose his grazing permit for even attempting that.

It would appear that the BHA is one of those applauding public access and road closures.

But, apparently, they don't want the ranchers there either. Or the loggers. Or the miners.

Just the folks that can walk 30 miles into a place to hunt.

Hell, some of the members are National Forest Service Rangers that are in charge of closure of roads and access.

And they use THEIR access to scout for trophy animals using government resources.

didn't know it was public land.
i was thinking it was one of these deals
where folks are moaning (like here in Texas)
that they have to pay to hunt someone's
property and they can't just hop the fence
and go hunt like they used to "back home"

Some of the same people condemn paying to hunt on private land too.

You'll see them all amass here in this thread. Just watch.

It's the multi use thing that hangs me up. My dad is in a wheelchair and the only way he sees any land is out the window. If tawney had his way the whole place would be wilderness and guys like dad get screwed.

I had it out with BHA over their push for more national parks. We can't hunt 99% of all park land, so why push for it. The response was that it gives animals a safe place to retreat.....I responded that private land does the same. They of course responded that private land could be hunted and I of course brought up the increased level of predation in the parks by canines and bears.

Watermelons. Green on the outside, commie red on the inside.

Yes. Are you implying otherwise?

Looking at some of their statements on the Sage Grouse issues, yes.

The sage grouse wouldn't even be endangered or threatened if populations of raptors were not prolific beyond reasonable management levels.

Noise doesn't kill grouse.

Cows and loggers don't either.

Thousands of hawks and other raptors eating them like popcorn sure do though.

I've actually done predator control work here in wa for the game dept. Coyotes and believe it or not fences kill the bulk of our grouse.