Blog Archives

Checkerboard—It’s not just a Town

July 5, 2024

By Terry L. AndersonJohn 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...

What Montanans lose with each APR land acquisition

June 30, 2024

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...

The Myth of the Public Trust Doctrine for Wildlife

September 30, 2022

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 If wildlife were to be held in a public trust, all private property rights would be superseded, allowing hunters to trespass without recourse.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

July 18, 2022

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...

Debunking the elk privatization myth

June 2, 2022

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...

Why we’re suing to fix elk management

May 11, 2022

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...