Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Montana FWP enforcement practices - HB 369

Received from Montana Shooting Sports Association today:

Rep. Wendy Warburton reports that legislators are getting lots of messages to oppose her HB-369
HB 369 is MSSA's bill to curtail the law enforcement practices of FWP game wardens to limit such practices to what is allowed for deputy sheriffs. Of course, FWP squalls at that because wardens are so used to running fast and loose. The opposition messages are being generated by the Montana Wildlife Federation, always a reliable surrogate for FWP.

We need you to crank up the messages to members of the House Judiciary Committee in support of HB 369. If you have a story about FWP warden abuse, tell it as concisely as possible.
You can phone messages of support to 444-4800. You can use the Online message form at: Online form

Thanks for your help.

Gary

Members, House Judiciary Committee Chair: Ken Peterson (R-Billings)
Vice Chair: Krayton Kerns (R-Laurel)
Vice Chair: Diane Sands (D-Missoula)
Liz Bangerter (R-Helena)
Robyn Driscoll (D-Billings)
Kristin Hansen (R-Havre)
Bill Harris (R-Mosby)
Ellie Boldman Hill (D-Missoula)
David Howard (R-Park City)
Cleve Loney (R-Great Falls)
Margaret MacDonald (D-Billings)
Mike Menahan (D-Helena)
Michael More (R-Gallatin Gateway)
Jesse O'Hara (R-Great Falls)
Carolyn Pease-Lopez (D-Billings)
Joe Read (R-Ronan)
Keith Regier (R-Kalispell)
Dan Skattum (R-Livingston)
Bob Wagner (R-Harrison)
Wendy Warburton (R-Havre)

Holy crap thats a terrible piece of legislation. Just wow

This thread is on the big game page as well. It is a useless piece of legislation and Montana Shooting Sports ASSN is really showing itself to be no friend of hunters in proposing it. I can't imagine what they are thinking so I hope anyone out there who is a member can explain it to us. I encourage all you Montana hunters and non residents who care about our wildlife and are able to obey the laws without making excuses will speak out against this bad bill.

I'll give you one example of why this is a good piece of legislation. Lets say that you are hunting on a large chunk of NF land. You find a set of elk tracks in fresh snow that give all appearances of being those of a good bull so you begin to follow them. Eventually you catch up to the bull and kill him (big 350" bull), as your quartering him up you are approached by a warden and arrested. Turns out that you are on a 40 of unfenced, undeveloped, private that is located within the NF land. You are guilty of a felony, will be fined $10k for poaching a trophy animal, and lose your hunting privileges in the states that are members of the compact. Should you have known where you were at? Absolutely!!! Should it be possible to commit a felony and recieve such a harsh punishment due to simple negligence? Absolutely not!!!!

Your hypothetical is as ridiculous as the legislation....all this legislation will do is allow poachers to get away with crimes easier and hamstring an already understaffed FWP.

Nothing good can come from this.

Ridiculous? Are you saying that you don't think that this type of thing happens every year in MT and the guy just isn't caught?? The law is what it is and if my hypothetical occurred as described the average guy out for a hunt could easily become a felon.

No, I dont think it happens as you described in your hypothetical. If you want anyone to believe it, I suggest you provide some proof.

Ignorance isnt an excuse...unless this law is passed.

I don't think ignorance should be an excuse for anything - I just don't think that inadvertantly crossing an unmarked property line and killing an animal that is considered a "trophy" should be grounds for felony charges. We're talking about animals here - not human beings.

Ranger, in this day of high quality maps and GPS that contain exact property boundaries there is no excuse for the example you offer. But even if a hunter did wander into private land you fail to mention that game wardens have much latitude to take extenuating circumstances into account. Ignorance of private land boundaries shouldn't be an excuse for trespass, but private landowners have some responsibility to post their land if they want to protect it from inadvertent trespass. I trust our game wardens to weigh all factors fairly in the field and make good decisions. Apparently the Montana shooting sports association does not trust them for some reason, so I would be very interested in hearing a real example of when a warden unfairly punished a hunter under current law. This is a good time for the MSSA to put up or shut up.

Ranger1,

I think the last post sums it up pretty well from plattski, there is wiggle room for judgement.

I highly doubt that in your hypothetical situation, the trophy status law would be thrown at them. That law was passed to protect trophy game during the off-season and during the winter when they are highly visible and most vulnerable to poaching. The intent was to stop the poaching of large, trophy sized animals for profit, ego, etc.

I also disagree with you that poaching shouldnt be a felony...it should be in some cases, in particular in those cases where a person is poaching for profit, for ego driven reasons, etc. People that choose to steal my public wildlife deserve to be dealt with harshly, including having felony convictions where warranted.

It happened to a guy I used to work with. He was elk hunting down around Bozeman, but before he went he bought the current Forest Service Map. He ended up getting a nice bull and while he was gutting it a rancher came up and told him he was trespassing. The guy said he wasn't showing the map and where they were. The guy said he had bought or traded land for land (I don't remember which) the year before and had already called the game warden. When the warden arrived the guy again explained the situation. The warden understood, but still had to issue a ticket and the guy had to go to court where he was fined.

So yes it does happen and in this case the government was partly if not totally responsible for the mix up since the map said it was government land. Also the land owner handn't posted it.

Just a hunter, thanks for your example of a real-life situation. It is unfortunate that your friend got cross-wise of the rancher based on outdated land maps but it sounds like he took it like a man and paid his fine. That doesn't sound very severe, certainly not severe enough to warrant the approach proposed by HB 369. If you were that landowner and were fed up with trespass (which many landowners are) you wouldn't like it very much if that hunter had been able to claim ignorance and walk away.

I shot a cow elk during a restricted season on a private ranch and it jumped the boundary fence before going down on small piece of state ground close to another ranch. I could have crossed the fence to get that elk but instead I called FWP so as to avoid real problems. The warden came out and was very professional. He contacted the neighbor and secured permission for me to go on his land in the event that the elk jumped up and ran (which they will do), and he granted me permission to recover the elk on state land. It took me a while to get sorted out and recover my elk but it worked out fine. However, if I had just gone over the fence I would have been subject to fines and confiscation of the animal, both bad options. The system worked fine and I had a very positive interaction with a FWP warden.

It is our responsibility to know where we are hunting - period. If we make a mistake we can explain ourselves and hope for the best but the laws are designed to give wildlife and landowners the benefit of the doubt and game wardens have the difficult responsibility of refereeing disputes. I honestly can't understand the problem MSSA is supposedly trying to address, but what they're proposing fits the expression "if it ain't broke then fix it until it is." I hope this bill gets panned by the legislature.

Here's the problem. The landowner new the situation and new it was a bad deal and still pressed charges. I am a small landowner myself and do not like poachers, but common sense should be allowed in cases like I descibed. The guy was doing everything right according to the info he bought from the very people who sold the land in the first place and was still fined.

Ranger - First of all, accidental trespass in Montana is NOT a felony. Second, there is NO fine of $10K for such. Third, you will NOT lose your hunting privileges in Montana, or any other state, for an accidental trespass, as you have described.

Even the habitual trespassers are not handled as you mention.


The bigger question is this - "Is it the wardens fault someone accidentally trespassed, or the wardens fault that a state would impose the level of penalty they do for accidental trespass?"

Hardly the wardens fault, and this bill addresses none of the examples you cited.

There was talk of making trespass in Montana a felony and some considered introducing a bill with such in this session.

I suspect they would have a hard time getting that through the Senate Fish and Game committee, since one of the members was so publicly trounced for an accidental trespass a few years back. Something tells me he would be a hard guy to convince that accidental trespass should be a felony.

PM sent

Accidental trespass becomes a felony if a game animal considered a trophy is taken while committing the trespass. The penalty for illegally killing a trophy elk is $10k and loss of privileges. Has this particular situation occurred? Don't know... But it could. Most wardens are good people - That doesn't mean that I'm willing to give up any of my Constitutional rights (search and seizure) to make their jobs easier or to allow them to be more effective at their jobs in some cases. You work within the parameters of the Constitution or you use it for azz wipe - can't have it both ways. No reason that they can't abide by the same standards that the rest of the law enforcement in the state follow. Nor is there any reason that the fines and penalties for killing an animal should exceed those for a drunken driving conviction. One only need look as far as the debacle that occurred a while back when the warden killed a 200" ram in a "sting" operation to see that on occasion wardens get a bit out of control. I'd be all for hiring more wardens, I'm not for allowing any of them an inordinate amount of power to exercise in carrying out their duties.

*** Got zip to do with promoting poaching and everything to do with an honest fear of the possibility of everything I've worked for in life being destroyed due to a felony conviction for shooting an animal of a certain size on the wrong side of an unmarked, imaginary line.

So in MT there is no statuary requirement for properly posting land? In Idaho, there are specific requirments on how to post (size/color of marker and spacing) in order to charge/prosecute for trespassing. Cultivated land is considered posted as far as Fish and Game laws are concerned.

For example, my property is not posted, and not cultivated. So if I catch someone with a dead buck on my back pasture, I won't bother to call the sheriff or Fish and Game, because I know my property is not properly posted. All either could do is make sure the hunter has a license and proper tag.

I'd probably help the hunter recover the animal if I had time.

Nope - No requirement to post

This is a bad bill that will create even more poaching and trespassing on private land. Thanks for the heads up, as I am going to call and oppose the bill. Hunters need to know where they are hunting at all times. Most hunters are very honest. If this bill if passed, land owners will have even more problems. Ultimately, there will be more private land closed to hunting and more conflict between hunters and landowners. Game warden are stretched too thin as it is, don't limit their powers any more. Daryl.

It's been a while since I lived there, but next door in the Black Hills of South Dakota the National Forest there is riddled with small in holdings. The state places the burden on the land owner to post that land and even has a posting standard that must be met. If it's not posted or not posted properly then there is no tresspassing. There are lots of small mining claims (patented) and most of the owners don't care and don't bother to post, no fences or anything to indicate a change of landowner ship. That would be a sensible law for the example you cited.