Blog – United Property Owners of Montana

BLM moves to save the cowboys by rejecting APR’s radical project

Written by upom-admin on February 2, 2026. Posted in APR, Bison, Blog.

In a decisive move that safeguards Montana ranching, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has revoked grazing permits allowing the American Prairie Reserve (APR) to run bison on approximately 63,000 acres of public lands in north-central Montana. Announced in January 2026, this reversal of a 2022 authorization marks a critical win for agriculture in Montana, countering the expansive ambitions of a well-funded nonprofit that threatens the very fabric of our rural communities.

For those unfamiliar, APR is an extreme environmental organization with the goal of assembling a vast, privately owned wildlife refuge spanning over 5,000 square miles—roughly the size of Connecticut. Backed by wealthy donors from outside Montana, APR has aggressively purchased ranches, converting them from productive cattle operations to “re-wilded” habitats for free-roaming bison. While this vision of restoring a wild prairie might sound romantic to urban environmentalists, it poses real threats to local communities and the ranching industry that has sustained Montana for generations.

One of the primary threats from APR is its land acquisition strategy, which disrupts the local economy. By buying up family ranches—often at premiums that outbid local buyers—APR removes important economic contributors from our communities. With each ranch lost there are fewer customers on Main Street, fewer kids in the schools, and fewer taxpayers contributing to local services. This isn’t conservation; it’s a slow-motion land grab that erodes the economic backbone of central Montana.

Even more concerning are the practical risks posed by APR’s bison herds. Unlike domestic cattle, bison are powerful, unpredictable animals that can breach fences and wander onto adjacent properties, damaging crops, infrastructure, and even posing safety hazards to humans. Ranchers have long voiced fears about disease transmission, particularly brucellosis—a devastating disease leading to mandatory quarantines and financial ruin. And critically, with wild bison, APR would have no liability for damage caused to their neighbors.

Perhaps the even more serious threat posed by APR was the completely new policy they were attempting to set with BLM’s grazing permits. BLM was established to manage grazing lands to ensure a stable food supply for the nation. APR’s plan was to take control of those grazing allotments, take them out of production agriculture, and “re-wild” them.

If BLM had allowed this to proceed, we would have seen non-profit organizations throughout the West in a land rush to buy up ranches to take them out of cattle production, undermining the stability of the entire Western livestock industry.

BLM’s ruling is unequivocally good for Montana ranchers. It preserves access to BLM-managed allotments for cattle grazing, ensuring that public lands remain a resource for productive, sustainable agriculture rather than experimental wildlife projects. By revoking these permits, the BLM upholds the principle that federal lands should support local economies, not subsidize playgrounds for out-of-state elites. Ranchers can now operate without the looming threat of competition from taxpayer-subsidized bison operations, which benefit from nonprofit status and don’t face the same market pressures as family-run outfits.

Moreover, this decision reinforces Montana’s cultural identity. The ubiquitous battle cry against APR has long been “Save the Cowboy.” Ranching isn’t just a job here—it’s a heritage passed down through families, embodying self-reliance, stewardship, and community. APR’s model romanticizes a pre-settlement prairie at the expense of those who have managed these lands responsibly for over a century. For Montana’s cowboys who’ve been facing down APR, this ruling is a godsend that ensures their continued existence.

Department of Interior considers vacating APR grazing permits

Written by upom-admin on December 16, 2025. Posted in APR, Bison, Blog.

A coalition of Montana counties has petitioned the Department of Interior (DOI) to vacate a 2022 decision that allows American Prairie Reserve (APR) bison to graze on BLM allotments. In response, DOI Secretary Doug Burgum on December 9 took the extraordinary step of assuming jurisdiction over a review of the 2022 decision. The result of this move portends to be a major blow to APR’s plan to establish a 3.5-million-acre private nature preserve in the heart of Montana.

In a detailed filing with DOI, the Montana Natural Resource Coalition of Counties (MTNRC) points out that BLM lands are reserved for livestock grazing and cannot be rewilded. Furthermore, BLM regulations give grazing preference to “cattle, sheep, horses, burros, and goats.”

MTNRC contends the 2022 decision to allow APR to graze bison on BLM grazing allotments contravenes BLM’s own rules and regulations and should be vacated.

APR has also disingenuously claimed to be a livestock operation, thereby qualifying for BLM grazing preference. Those claims were exposed as false, however, in the release of private correspondence between APR President Sean Garrity and then-Governor Steve Bullock. In a September 5, 2017 letter to Bullock, Garrity writes that APR’s objective is to “create the largest nature reserve in the continental United States (that will) result in wild bison one day inhabiting the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and eventually the surrounding areas.”

APR’s plan to remove 3.5 million acres of Montana land from agricultural production is viewed as an existential threat to the ranching communities in their target area. Without preferential treatment from BLM, APR’s plan to rewild and depopulate this area will become more difficult.

Checkerboard—It’s not just a Town

Written by upom-admin on July 5, 2024. Posted in Blog.

By Terry L. Anderson
John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

When residents of Meagher County hear the word “checkerboard,” they likely think of the tiny town 20 miles to the east of White Sulphur Springs, but to ranchers in Wyoming it is a fighting word. The fighting started in 2020 when four Missouri hunters got elk tags to hunting in the southwestern part of Wyoming near the Elk Mountain Ranch, owned by an “out-of-stater” from North Carolina. The hunters knew there was no public hunting allowed on the ranch, and they also knew that the lack of access made the ranch and adjacent public land a haven for elk.

Their solution to the access problem was “checkerboarding.” Look at any cadastral map of Montana and you will know what it means. Federal land policies including homesteading, the railroad land grants, and school trust land set-asides created a checkerboard pattern with alternative sections of private and public land.

The Missouri hunters decided they could access the public land squares by crossing the infanticidal intersection of the checkerboard. In other words, they thought they could cross through the space from public to pubic without trespassing.

The landowner thought differently. Obviously, the hunters’ bodies had to cross through the space about the rancher’s land and therefore constituted a trespass. Thinking the law was on his side, the rancher summoned the sheriff, but the man with the badged didn’t issue a criminal citation for trespass because, it turns out, the law was not so clear.

In 2021 the Missouri hunters tried to “corner cross” again, this time with an A-frame ladder with its legs firmly on public land. This time the private landowner filed a civil suit against the hunters claiming a $7.75 million diminution in the value of the ranch.

Eventually the case went to the Wyoming Supreme Court which found the hunters innocent and now is being weighed by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

This story will sound familiar to landowners and anglers old enough to remember the stream access controversy in Montana. The question regarding stream access centered around whether people could float on or wade in water flowing through and across private land. The controversy was resolved when the legislature passed the Montana Stream Access Law, giving the public the right to recreate on rivers and streams up to the ordinary high water mark.

Like stream access, corner crossing is about who has the right to access valuable public land and water. Groups such as Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, a self-proclaimed “conservation group,” claims the public has a right to access public resources, and private landowners claim they have a right to say who crosses their property to access public resources.

As these claimants continue to battle, it is time to bring a little Montana heritage and commonsense to the debate. As a kid growing up in Bridger, Montana, I could walk out my front door and hunt when I was 12, but I knew I had to have permission from the landowners. I knew I did not have permission to “hunt on ‘old lady Jones’ property,” and I never did.

It is this heritage that is the foundation of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks’ adage, “Ask first to hunt on private lands,” and it is the law to do so. I know it, my kids know it, and I hope that their kids do. Whether you are a Montana native or a newcomer, you should know it, too!

On the other side of the fence (pun intended) are the landowners. While “old Lady Jones” said no, there were many others who said “yes” after I “asked first.” Montana heritage gives the landowner the right to say yes or no and tells the hunter or angler to respect the answer.

This commonsense heritage applies whether you are a native or newcomer. Montana was never the “wild, wild west” because people respected one another’s rights. Searching for wiggle room—such as corner crossing—to challenge long standing property rights and traditions is not the Montana way. “Ask first” is.

What Montanans lose with each APR land acquisition

Written by upom-admin on June 30, 2024. Posted in APR, Bison, Blog.

American Prairie Reserve has been crowing about their recent ranch purchases in Phillips County. What they won’t tell you is those acquisitions come at a cost to you and every other Montanan.

It’s important to reflect on what we’re losing when APR removes land from agricultural production. Most regretfully we’re losing the next generation of family ranchers whose job it is to grow food. The dangerous decline in American agricultural production over the last few decades is accelerated if we allow nonprofit groups to buy up prime Montana ranch land. It’s no wonder we’re seeing such increases in food prices.

Our communities are also losing the families who work those ranches. Families fill our schools and require goods and services, creating customers for the businesses in our ag-oriented towns. Without those families, schools and communities suffer and shrink. It’s a devastating economic and cultural loss.

But if that seems too far removed for you to worry about, are you aware that there is also the loss of tax revenue generated on those properties? That’s a loss that impacts everyone. Half of Montana’s state budget comes from income tax collections, and American Prairie Reserve pays zero. In 2022, APR reported earning $63 million in tax-free revenue.

And it’s not just that they’re exempt from paying their fair share, APR has set themselves up in such a way that they take tax dollars out of Montana’s general fund. That’s because as a nonprofit, the donations they receive are deductible and result in lower income tax liability for their donors.

APR sells luxury “glamping” excursions on their property, which come complete with a private chef. In 2022 they reported earning $140,000 from these tours, for which they paid no tax. APR also leases some of their property (for now) to ranchers for grazing. They report earning nearly $500,000 annually in lease income—again that’s all profit for which they pay no income tax. And to add insult to injury, in 2022 APR claimed $843,000 in federal tax credits—even though they pay $0 in federal income tax!

If ranch families had the advantage of tax-free income, like APR, how much more prosperous would they be? Would ends be easier to meet, so selling off the family legacy wasn’t even a thought?

And how about financial gifts from donors? If some generous soul wanted to gift a ranch family the funds to pay off their debt, the rancher would be required to claim it as income and pay a sky-high gift tax. The donor would receive no tax benefit for their generosity.

American Prairie Reserve is on a mission to destroy vibrant Montana communities filled with hard-working families. Their radical plan is to turn the land over to wild animals and the elite class who can pay to pretend to co-exist with them. You and every other taxpayer are forced to subsidize this nonprofit scheme.

As they grow larger, more of the tax burden gets shifted to the rest of us. The land APR acquires will never again be held by privately owned. That land will never again produce food for Americans. And that land will never again support a family. While APR brags about what they’ve gained with each new ranch they purchase, the rest of us should reflect on what we’re losing.

The Myth of the Public Trust Doctrine for Wildlife

Written by upom-admin on September 30, 2022. Posted in Blog, Elk, Stream Access.

A new organization, called the Montana Public Trust Coalition, has been created by the same old leftist activists groups who have for years been attacking Montanans’ property rights. Expanding the public trust doctrine to apply to wildlife has been the north star for these activists since the 1970s. If wildlife were to be held in a public trust, all private property rights would be superseded, allowing hunters to trespass without recourse.

Two public trust proposals were introduced during the 1972 Constitutional Convention, and both were wisely rejected. Contrary to the claims of some, a public trust doctrine for wildlife is not the law in Montana.

We’ve created a fact sheet to knock down the myths of the public trust doctrine. You can download it by clicking here.

Debby Barrett: It’s time for FWP to follow the law on elk management

Written by upom-admin on July 18, 2022. Posted in Blog, Elk.

Montana’s elk population has tripled over the last 40 years. For decades we have exceeded the sustainable objective levels in most hunting districts. FWP’s goal is 92,000 elk in Montana, but today there are an estimated 175,000. That excess elk population causes immense damage to family ranch operations in overpopulated areas, and it’s a problem that grows worse every year.

What’s frustrating is we saw this problem coming years ago and set policy to address it. In 2003 I sponsored House Bill 42, which mandated that the Montana Fish & Game Commission use all management tools available in order to keep big game populations at objective levels. That legislation specified that the Commission should use “liberalized harvests, game damage hunts, landowner permits, (and) animal relocation” to reach objective.

That hasn’t happened. In fact, the Commission has repeatedly rejected appeals to liberalize harvests in the most over-objective hunting districts in the state. Earlier this year, the Commission voted down a proposal to increase archery and rifle permits in several districts that are more than double their population objectives. Their decision came in response to intense lobbying to keep these hunting districts as exclusive trophy hunting areas.

Nowhere in Montana law is the Commission given the authority to prioritize areas for trophy hunting. The legislature would never grant that authority because to do so would require ranchers in those areas be singled out for disparate treatment. Trophy areas can only be created by limiting hunting opportunity, limited hunting opportunity leads to excessive elk populations, and excessive elk populations lead to extreme damage to crops, forage, and feed.

In other words, to create a trophy hunting area requires imposing undue expenses on a few unlucky ranchers singled out by the Commission.

Wildlife management shouldn’t be a popularity contest or decided by who yells the loudest. But that’s what it’s become. Instead of careful, science-based consideration of how best to utilize our resources, the Commission is now only responsive to lobbying by sportsmen who want more elk and with bigger racks.

HB 42 was intended to protect the rights of ranchers (who bear the costs of elk) against the wants of sportsmen (who are the beneficiaries of elk). The former are vastly outnumbered by the latter. What’s worse is the misalignment of incentives between those who benefit from huge elk herds and those who pay the cost.

The policy set forth by the legislature is clear. Wildlife managers have a statutory obligation to protect the rights of the minority by minimizing the damages they incur. That’s supposed to be accomplished by setting a target population objective developed through a calculation of what the habitat can sustain and what landowners can tolerate. After the objective is set, management policy is supposed to use all tools available to bring the population level in line with the objective.

None of this is happening. The Commission has failed to follow the law and as a result they’ve created immense damage to individual ranchers. This problem has been building for decades, and it has finally come to a head with a lawsuit filed by ranchers seeking to compel the Commission to change their management practices.

The legislature can write laws, but it’s up to the executive branch to implement them. In this case, the Fish & Game Commission has failed in their duty to implement the law, resulting in excessive damages. To alleviate those damages, the only recourse is for those ranchers to seek relief from the judiciary. For the sake of Montana’s elk herd and habitat, let’s hope they prevail.

Debby Barrett served in the Montana Legislature from 2001 to 2015. She was elected President of the Senate in 2015 and served on the House and Senate wildlife committees.

Debunking the elk privatization myth

Written by upom-admin on June 2, 2022. Posted in Blog, Elk.

In a recent opinion piece, state legislators Tom France and Pat Flowers try to make the case that Governor Gianforte is planning to “privatize” Montana’s elk herds at the behest of greedy ranchers. In a bizarre twist of logic, the foundation of their thesis is the fact that those same ranchers are suing the Gianforte administration for improper elk management. Even if their narrative quickly unravels under scrutiny, it deserves a response.

France and Flowers know perfectly well that no governor can privatize elk. Commercial elk farms were banned in Montana with the passage of I-143 in 2000. Elk, like all wildlife, are a public resource managed by government trustees for the benefit of all. In Montana, no one can own elk—this is not in dispute.

The lawsuit brought against the state by United Property Owners of Montana (UPOM) is not an attempt to privatize elk, its objective is to address the significant damage some ranchers are suffering due to elk policies that have resulted in explosive, unsustainable population growth in a few areas.

Why we’re suing to fix elk management

Written by upom-admin on May 11, 2022. Posted in Blog, Elk.

In a few areas of the state elk populations have been allowed to grow to crisis proportions. For example, in hunting district 417 in Fergus County, the elk population is estimated at 4,300 animals—that’s eleven and a half times more than the sustainable population objective set by state wildlife biologists.

Excessive elk populations have caused an untenable hardship for the ranchers who provide habitat. This is an area suffering from extreme drought, grasshoppers, and wildfire in recent years. Many cattle producers last year reduced their mother cow herds by 25 percent or more. BLM has notified ranchers in this area of a 30 percent reduction in AUMs for this year due to a shortage of grass.

These difficulties are compounded by elk populations grown wildly beyond what is considered sustainable as those elk damage crops, attack hay yards, and compete for forage.

The causal factor that has led to this elk population crisis is the policy of the Fish and Game Commission. In 2007 they designated hunting district 417 and a dozen other districts as special “trophy” districts and strictly limited hunting opportunity. In HD 417, the Commission allows only 225 either-sex elk rifle permits and 300 archery permits. With such restrictive opportunity, it’s no wonder the population has exploded beyond sustainability.

Conservation Easements are Big Business

Written by upom-admin on January 17, 2022. Posted in Blog, Conservation Easements.

(Liberty Matters News Service) Syndicated conservation easements have once again turned up on the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) 2021 “Dirty Dozen” tax scam list. They were first added to the list of schemes the IRS finds are the most fraudulent in 2019.

The syndicated conservation easement practice the IRS is targeting is when it is used as an investment tool, instead of a legitimate charity “gift.” Investors purchase property they can place in a conservation easement, and then divide the property among its clients. The conservation easement on the property is contracted through a willing land trust, and the charitable tax-deduction is split among the client owners.

What has caught the IRS’s attention is that many of these syndicated conservation easements have substantially increased the value of the property when reported to the IRS, making the tax-deduction substantially larger than the cost of the property — in many cases more than 250 percent of the value of the property. IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said the practice “defraud[s] the government of revenue. Putting an end to these abusive schemes is a high priority for the IRS.”

APR’s ranch buying spree has negative impact on Montana taxpayers

Written by upom-admin on January 6, 2022. Posted in APR, Bison, Blog.

The ink is dry on another historic cattle ranch in the Upper Missouri River Breaks consumed by the non-profit organization American Prairie Reserve (APR). With a deal to acquire the 73 Ranch, another piece of Montana’s history and leading industry has been gobbled up by the billionaires that fund APR, at the expense of Montana taxpayers.

Non-profits claiming to be conservationists rob taxpayers in a couple of different ways. Donations to APR to purchase ranch property come with lucrative tax deductions. With their privileged tax status, every dollar APR receives leaves our government coffers with less than they otherwise would have.