Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Free range buff in MT?

MWF takes their lead and funding from NWF, which is emphatically more a Green than pro-hunting organization. NWF I think actually paid for the fuel to ship the bison to Fort Peck, so your dance is understandable, Buzz.

Dave,

Lame attempt to divert from the truth...5.2 million acres of state land open to all, stream access.

They win, and they win big for the sportsmen of Montana...a fact you cant deny.

You wont find a more pro-hunting group in Montana.

I�ve always enjoyed the selfish hunter jacka$$ mentality of never cooperating with any group the Elmer Fudds deems to be �green� in the first place.

Seems to me if any hunter actually gave a real crap about the prey they were chasing they could always put that aside for the conservation effort. Then fight them for the hunting later IF there was actually a fight.

in 5,4,3,2,1....................

Dinkshooter,

Do you even Hunt?

Hi guys, long time lurker, first time poster. Unfortunately I couldn't stay out of this thread.

Mr. skinner, you are wrong on this. MWF is an independent organization that is affiliated with the National Wildlife Federation. They pay roughly $150 a year and as such get some good benefits such as lawyers, increased federal presence and also a lot of headaches. There is little funding that comes from NWF to MWF.

I believe their 990 spells that out

Forgot to add, in the interest of full disclosure, I am the author of the blog post that RL11 posted and i currently am under contract to work on bison issues at the MT legislature.

Lots of stuff in this thread to go through but here are my initial thoughts:

1: it's no tougher to develop a bison proof fence that is wildlife friendly than it is a cattle fence. There are a couple of anches oustside of Choteau that utilize wildlife friendly femcing for buff and they don't seem to have any more problems with bison than they do with estray livestock. APR runs a 5 wire fence,with the second wire electrified and they rarely get a buff ouside the fence The tribes have both finished their femcing projects which will keep bison inside their wire. In fact, no bison have left Belknap since the translocation.

2: the concerns of locals should be front and center of any bison relocation. That's why FWP's process calls for localworking groups to figure out if wild bison can work on localclandscapes.

3: APR has 80% of their land enrolled in block managment a d opened up about 290,000 of BLM land that was previosuly landlocked.

4: you can have bison on the landscape. According to SB 212 from lat session, there is room to find out where. The current batch of legislation breaks the deal between montanans who came together to develop that legislation. Poor form, if you ask me.

Nice! Some facts to intervene with my drivel.

Ahhh, never mind, some of the landowners said it would be too much of a hassle to have another free ranging animal to chase on public property. I guess they�re right.

Vote for Pedro, I mean Brenden

Thanks for the information rosco. Sam seems to be worried about the possibility of bison crossing the Missouri, but a hunt like that would appear to solve that issue.



I think Buzz's separate post addressed this much better than I can, but this should also be addressed in the thread in case anybody reads it later in the archives. I don't think anybody thinks that Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife are insignificant. If anything, they are downright dangerous. Why would a group claiming to be for sportsmen testify in support of HB 312? Why would any hunter want to be a part of a group whose founder called the North American Wildlife Conservation Model socialist? The MT-SFW website has a long page of drivel about how wolves are ruining all that is sacred in the world. Plus, there is a picture of a snarling wolf. That is clearly there to stir your emotions and get you frightened into giving them money. The average guy is going to swallow that hook, line and sinker. Never mind that elk habits may have changed a little bit after the reintroduction, or that any declines in game populations are far more likely due to habitat loss than predators. It's gots to be the wolves, I tells you!

As far as I can tell, that is not a group to be scoffed at. They know how to get the average hunter to fund them, and then they proceed to stab them in the back.

Ben, is NWF considered to be pro-hunting?

You are a (pro)bison lobbyist?

Who pays you?

Waiting to hear the answer to Sammo's question...

Ben, is NWF considered to be pro-hunting? [/quote]

Duck Commander seems to think so.
http://vanishingparadise.org/

Most the folks at NWF that I know all hunt and fish. They are the nation's largest wildlife conservation organization. As such, the advocate for pro-wildlife and pro-hunting positions regarding federal regulations and legislation, as well as at the state level.

Now, ask me if I always agree with NWF's positions.

Right now, I am under contract with NWF and the World Wildlife Fund to represent them at the Legislature.

Also, apologies for not being able to stick around and further the debate. I'm off to try and kill a bill that would end the migration of Bison out of Yellowstone and erase IBMP:
http://laws.leg.mt.gov/legprd/LAW0203W$BSRV.ActionQuery?P_SESS=20131&P_BLTP_BILL_TYP_CD=HB&P_BILL_NO=484&P_BILL_DFT_NO=&P_CHPT_NO=&Z_ACTION=Find&P_SBJT_SBJ_CD=&P_ENTY_ID_SEQ=

I'll check back in this evening.

Cheers.

Ben, how high is the tallest wire off of the ground?

How tall is the lowest wire from the ground?

What type of wire(barbed/smooth)?

Did APR have to use a helicopter to get their buff back in when they got out a couple years ago?





What has been the local consensus at the FWP hearings?

If it was a negative response do you think MTFWP will take that into legitimate consideration?

And do you think it's in poor form to use the buff as a political "payback or threat" against ranchers/landowners?






Wasn't most of that land already under under a BMA or conservation easement prior to APR's purchase?

290,000 acres of 'landlocked' BLM...

You mean they opened up 290,000 acres of BLM that was previoulsy unaccessable to the public???
I find that hard to believe, where exactly is the 290,000 acres(or better yet who held the lease(s) on it before APR?



Thanks for answering my previous questions.

We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Hang on boy's she's going to be a rough ride.

http://www.npcn.net/index.php/pages/big-open/

Wow T, that is really something.

Purple eartags on that herd.....grin

And I just looked at their acreage numbers, way off for the area around here.

I remember sitting through this presentation back in my early college days. 1990/1991? Glad to see the dream is still alive in another form.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Commons

I'd be interested in these figures as well so as to compare them to current BLM fencing standards. IIRC, the bottom wire has to be smooth and a min of 16" off the ground and the top wire can't be any higher than 43" (or something close to that).

Another thought; do any of the current land use plans for the public lands in question analyze the impacts of buffalo? I'd think it would have to at a minimum be in the LUP for the cummulative impacts. They would also need to be addressed in both the wildlife section and the grazing allocation section. I can't imagine that this could be construed as activity level planning.