We’re pleased to announce that FWP has agreed to settle our lawsuit against them regarding their bison management plan. They’ve agreed to scrap the bison plan and will not undertake a new EIS for bison management for at least ten years. You can read the settlement agreement here.

As part of the litigation against FWP to challenge their bison management plan, UPOM requested all communications from FWP related to the bison management plan. We received over 2500 pages of documents. Through that discovery, we learned that FWP was in deep negotiations with APR to establish a herd of free-roaming bison on the CMR wildlife refuge. This despite repeated claims by FWP that they were not considering any specific relocation sites as part of their bison EIS.

Due to the damning information that was discovered through the course of our litigation, FWP was eager to settle the case. It was clear from communications FWP had related to the EIS that they were acting in an inappropriate and likely illegal manner by having secret meetings with APR, excluding their selected site (UL Bend on the CMR) from EIS analysis, and conducting the EIS to reach a predetermined outcome. In short, we had them dead to rights and they knew it. You can read our settlement offer linked here.

You can read some of this correspondence in the documents linked here. Here’s what you will find:

By Rep. Dan Bartel

In central Montana the American Prairie Reserve has amassed 420,000 acres of prime ranch land. This is a fraction of their ultimate objective: to control 3.2 million acres. The land they acquire will eventually be taken out of agricultural production and “re-wilded.” The thriving ranching communities in and around APR’s 5,000 square mile target area will be wiped off the map.

If you’re a Montana taxpayer, you’re helping APR pay for their radical plan.

by Nathan Descheemaeker

Can private property serve as a privileged sanctuary from which multi-national tax-exempt foundations can incrementally transition and consolidate millions of acres of productive agricultural lands?

The APR in its paper Building a Legacy of Conservation pg. 1 states “When complete, the Reserve will consist of more than three million acres of private and public land (using the existing 1.1-million-acre Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge as the public land anchor). The result will be a wildlife complex the size of Connecticut, set aside for conservation and public access.” On pg. 2 of the paper the APR reveals their appeal for the chosen area, “There’s a tremendous amount of public land to leverage.”

Montana FWP Director Martha Williams had a stark message for Montana counties in her interview on the Voices of Montana Program this week.  When asked if FWP would comply with county ordinances related to bison management, Williams revealed that her Department had no intention of doing so.

Voters in several Montana counties have enacted bison management ordinances, which require that all bison in the county, both domestic and wild, be tested for brucellosis, be branded or tagged and have their health status tracked.  Under these voter-enacted ordinances, entities that wish to graze bison in the county must have a management and conservation plan.

Bison management ordinances have been popular in the counties that have been targeted by FWP and APR for massive free-roaming bison herds.  For instance, voters in Phillips County enacted their bison ordinance with 79% of the county electorate in favor in 2016.  Several other counties have seen similar support at the ballot box.  The ordinances are authorized under state laws that allow county conservation districts to propose land use regulations for a citizen referendum. 

Williams’s unilateral decree that those local ordinances are invalid is legally dubious, and puts FWP on yet another collision course with landowners.

“The message from Martha Williams and FWP is clear,” said UPOM spokesman Chuck Denowh.  “They don’t care what the locals say, they’re prepared to shove it down our throats over the objections of both the county commissioners and the voters.”

The Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks is now formally recommending the introduction of free-roaming bison in Montana after the release of a long-awaited environmental impact statement. It’s a move that dramatically intensifies conflict over wildlife management in Montana.

And worse, it’s a sobering message to the thousands of Montanans who provide habitat to wildlife. FWP has made clear it would rather advance the agenda of a radical, out-of-state environmental group—the American Prairie Reserve—than give even the barest amount of credence to the virtually unanimous opposition to free-roaming bison from Montana landowners.

Let’s be clear about who is driving this process. The APR derives nearly all of its support from outside Montana. They are pushing a radical plan to depopulate several million acres in central Montana, replacing those communities with a playground for their wealthy donors. In the process, their plan would remove a large chunk of Montana’s agriculture output from our state’s economy.

With the recommendation for free-roaming bison, FWP is signaling they’re a willing co-conspirator to the APR’s extreme agenda.

FWP’s recommendation goes directly opposite the policy mandated by Montana lawmakers just one year ago. In HJ 28, the Montana legislature established a clear policy opposed to free-roaming bison, citing concerns over damage to Montanans’ public lands, threats to wildlife populations, and costs that would be borne by private landowners and rural communities.

Fortunately, FWP lacks the legal authority to unilaterally force free-roaming bison to be introduced anywhere in Montana. But the fact they are so callously willing to thumb their nose at Montana’s policymakers brings into question what else they might attempt to do.

FWP often says they want decisions to be collaborative. Actions speak louder than words. The bison EIS shows a complete disregard to the Montanans who have real-world concerns about free-roaming bison—and at the same time bends over backwards to accommodate an out-of-state group dedicated to dismantling Montana communities. There was absolutely nothing collaborative in FWP’s free-roaming bison recommendation.

The only people who matter in this issue are those with skin in the game—the real Montanans with something to lose if free-roaming bison are forced onto their property. They’re fighting for their very lives and livelihoods against the out-of-state elites who want to wipe them off the map. Who’s side should our Montana FWP be on?

The hysterical reaction by the left to the appointment of William Perry Pendley to serve as director of the BLM deserves a response.

The chief accusation against Pendley is that he will sell federal public land to “special interest allies.” He can’t. The director of BLM has absolutely no authority to unilaterally sell the land under his jurisdiction. The Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 specifically prohibits the BLM from selling land, with very narrow exceptions.

If William Perry Pendley wanted to sell BLM lands, it would literally take an act of Congress to allow him to do so. The Pendley detractors saying our public lands are in jeopardy are either woefully misinformed or outright liars.

Pendley is also being criticized for holding the apparently-controversial notion that state-based regulators are better suited to manage federal public lands than regulators based in Washington, DC. I think that most Montanans would agree with that position. Montanans absolutely should have a greater say in what happens on the federal land in our state rather than having everything dictated from DC.

Perhaps the most over-the-top attack against Pendley has come from the Montana Conservation Voters’ Whitney Tawney who said, “(Pendley) poses a grave threat to Montana’s economy.” Really? Because he’s friendly to agriculture and the energy industry—two of the biggest sectors of Montana’s economy? The irony, of course, is that Tawney’s group has dedicated itself to killing jobs and undermining Montana’s economy. Pot, meet kettle.

As for grave threats to Montana’s economy, there’s a big one looming that the BLM has a direct role in preventing. The American Prairie Reserve has petitioned for changes in BLM grazing allotments as a first step in their objective of establishing an enormous free-roaming bison herd in Central Montana.

If granted, the APR’s livestock change in use application to BLM would be a radical departure from BLM grazing practices over the last 85 years. The Taylor Grazing Act established grazing allotments throughout the West for the purpose of conserving public resources and reserving them for agricultural production.

The APR wants to effectively eliminate scientifically-backed grazing practices, which would put the health of the range in jeopardy and decimate several local economies. It would also set a precedent that we would surely see replicated in other areas of the West.

This year the Montana legislature came out strongly against the APR’s requested changes to their BLM allotments. We’re now fortunate to have a person like Pendley running BLM who understands the value of these public lands and the importance of agriculture to the economy of Montana.

The truth is that Pendley brings a wealth of expertise on federal land management, and all indications are he will be great benefit to Western states. So when you see wild claims from his detractors—like that he’s going to sell off federal lands—question who those critics truly represent, because odds are they’re drawing a paycheck from an out-of-state environmental group.