Travel & Outdoors News

Revisiting The Cabela’s Controversy

By Bill Schneider, 10-29-08

Last year I wrote a series of articles about concerns voiced by Montana hunters about Cabela’s Trophy Properties, the real estate marketing division of the world’s largest retailer of hunting, fishing and camping gear, Cabela’s.

Facing a rapid decline in access to both private and public land, the last thing Montana hunters needed was “one of their own,” Cabela’s, to launch headlong into the amenity real estate business and further speed up the loss of huntable land.

Fueled by the state’s largest sporting group, the 7,000-member-strong Montana Wildlife Federation, the issue became white-hot controversial. The MWF even asked its members to return their catalogs to Cabela’s with letters protesting the new venture. Hundreds of them did exactly that and, suddenly, hunters had the company’s big-time attention and promises to do what it could to smooth out the ruffled feathers.

But did the firestorm really change anything? Or a year later, is Cabela’s Trophy Properties (CTP) doing business as usual?

I’m revisiting the issue because I’ve recently received a few emails from Montana hunters concerned that Cabela’s “bought off” or “got a free pass” from the MWF and Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP), so aptly, during the biggest week of year for hunters, the first week of the general big game season, I thought it was time to find out what really happened.

One thing that definitely hasn’t changed is the hunting access crisis. Montana has the highest populations of deer and elk ever, but the amount of huntable land continues to decline. This is a multi-headed monster, for sure, but a primary culprit causing the decline is amenity land sales. The buyer often considers his or her new purchase a private hunting preserve or leases the hunting rights to an outfitter, corporation or an individual rich enough to buy them--a process some hunters claim CTP accelerates by more rapidly matching up sellers with buyers.

Alan Charles, who heads up FWP access programs, including the Block Management Program, told NewWest.Net, that access remains a huge problem, but that the state can’t really do anything more about CTP than it has already done.

“Cabela’s did follow through on everything FWP asked them to do,” Charles confirmed, “which was to make more information on the stream access law and block management available and post a live feed to the Owning Eden video on their website.”

”Owning Eden is an outreach message for landowners on good stewardship,” Charles said. “This is one of our key informational tools for landowners.” (Click here to view it.)

If you go to the CTP website, you can view thousands of property listings in almost every state and many foreign countries--184 listings in Montana, all with one broker, Clearwater Montana Properties of Seeley Lake. You can also find the stewardship message Charles mentioned, and a special tab called “Montana programs,” which you could consider a small victory because no other state has its own tab on the CTP website. When you click on that tab you get links to Montana’s block management and stream access programs and the video feed, all under the title, “Opportunities and Profitable Wildlife Management for Private Montana Landowners.”

(I confess to scratching my head when I read that title, but won’t read any negative messages into it.)

The Cabela’s Stewardship Policy is strongly worded, but not binding on sellers or buyers. It asks landowners to look at state hunting access programs and insists Cabela’s does not condone subdividing large ranches. It also encourages people to “take a kid hunting or fishing.”

I called Cabela’s to get their comments on what has been done and had a long chat with the appropriate executive, but he declined to say anything on the record unless his “public relations department” approved his comments, which I declined to do.

A key point of his defense, however, was the new Cabela’s policy of not listing any property currently in Block Management unless the seller agrees to require the buyer to continue the program, but—and this is a Big But—only as long as the existing agreement. Block Management agreements run either one or three years, so the buyer’s commitment would be three years maximum and could be as little as a few months.

Cabela’s may believe that the often-proven corporate strategy of delaying a volunteer effort long enough to let it lose steam and go away has worked again, but that is not what’s happening in Montana.

“We’re not just walking away from the Cabela’s issue,” Craig Sharpe, executive director of MWF, told NewWest.Net, explaining that his organization has simply been distracted by other key issues for the past few months. “Cabela’s is only one piece of the access pie.”

Sharpe is currently drafting a letter to Cabela’s and the FWP requesting a progress report. “I’ll be asking what has been done and then we’ll assess what we should do.”

He already knows some good things have been done. “Look at their (Cabela’s) website,” he notes. “That’s a direct result of the pressure we put on them. But they can’t forget that Cabela’s was built on the backs of the ordinary hunter and angler. Do they really need to be advertising property in Montana? Our ultimate goal would be for them to not do this.”

MWF President Tim Aldrich agrees. “I don’t think we’ve given them a pass,” he insists, “but it really is time for us to go back and ask what they’re doing. Are they following through on the commitments they made?”

“The access problem is not getting any better,” he emphasized, “and we’re going to revisit this significant part of the issue. We’re the people who made Cabela’s what it is today, and now they’re taking it (hunting) away from us. I think that’s the time for our board to get together and say, well, if it isn’t working, what do we do about it.”

And here’s my $0.02. It would be a classic corporate miscalculation for Cabela’s to believe they’ve done enough to address the “Montana problem,” because they haven’t. The “World’s Foremost Outfitter” is hardly home free in Montana, especially with a new superstore due to open in Billings next spring, and the real possibility the controversy could spread to other states.

Hunting access is, by far, the number one issue for hunters, and right or wrong, Cabela’s has become an icon in why the amount of huntable land decreases every year. Right now, Cabela’s stock is down, and I’m not only talking about the New York Stock Exchange where a share that used to go for $29.65 now (as I write this) sells for $6.95--and bound to be active today with the company releasing its quarterly results shortly after announcing a 10 percent reduction in its workforce. I’m talking about much more valuable stock, the company’s image that continues to be tarnished by its real estate division.

I believe Cabela’s is sincere about trying to educate landowners and appease hunters, but not sincere enough to do anything that might injury sales of recreational properties. In reality, the company is merely sugar-coating the issue--and definitely not with enough sugar to make the medicine go down for much of its core retail customer base. Beneath the sugar coating, it’s business as usual for Cabela’s Trophy Properties.

Footnote: To read all my articles on the Cabela’s controversy, click here.

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