It seems to me the epicenter of this thread is landowner complaining, what excess or benefits is this to the general non-land owner public etc. My feelings are focus should be on what is in the best interest of elk management and elk herd health, of which I have heard little. I also believe that the outfitter/landowner locking people out is greatly exaggerated. I like the idea that there are areas that are off limits to the general public. If every square inch of Montana was open to the general public, how long would it be before every trophy bull and buck was in the back of somebody's pickup? Also, it has been said the elk belong to the public, and this is true, and landowners who hoard elk are entitled to nothing, the latter is not true. If the land belongs to somebody, and the elk that are on it belongs to the people, should not the landowner be compensated for caretaking and providing for the states elk? Should not the landowner have some say for the personal resources it takes to sustain an elk herd? Also, is not the general public also responsible for the conduct on private property that causes a lot of gates to be shut to begin with? These are honest questions that require some thought. How many of you, if you owned a big ranch or vast tracks of property would open it up to the general public?
I agree that it should be about the health of the elk, but MT elk "objectives" are set by tolerance/politics, so that's out the window from the start. If a landowner is truly "hoarding" public wildlife, why do they deserve any government assistance? If they want to minimize game "damage", there's this tool called hunting, and being that the resource is valuable, the landowner can profit off it. We have a ten week season. But apparently that's not good enough. And even before the new 7 months of hunting (with the new shoulder seasons) even kick off in MT, they're changing the rules already, this time letting the landowners hand pick the hunters instead of a fair roster.
http://fwp.mt.gov/news/publicNotices/rules/pn_0168.htmlFWP has dumped close to 2 Million in the last 5 years on "damage". But I suppose as long as some guys get to get out and smash a couple cows in February, to put some "meat in the freezer" all is good and well.
