DROPPING THE BOMB

Outfitter Initiative Foreshadows Much Bigger Issue, Saving Hunting

By Bill Schneider, 1-13-10

	Hunting Block Management kabd in Montana. Is this the future? Photos by Dusan Smetana.

While working on my recent article on a ballot initiative to eliminate Montana’s outfitter-sponsored big game licenses, I started wondering if this was really the best way to address perhaps the most serious problem facing the sport of hunting--and not just in Montana, but everywhere--rapidly declining public access to private land.

The real issue is a pay-to-play trend that’s leading us to the day when free public hunting on private land might only exist in the history books. Let’s look at the core cause of the problem and how to solve it.

First, though, let’s put one issue on the sidelines. Yes, I know it’s private land, but I also know wildlife is a public resource, so everybody is a stakeholder in this debate.

Farmers and ranchers close their land to public hunting for various reasons, but one is definitely the chance to make some extra cash leasing out the hunting rights to outfitters, big corporations or private clubs. I find it difficult to fault landowners who have been giving it away for decades for taking the money. They not only have some found money, but as a bonus, they have little or no hassle compared to monitoring and managing public hunting--and rarely have any damage caused by poorly behaved hunters because leasers usually manage their clients, employees or members and educate them on proper use of private land.

I see both sides of the I-161 issue and don’t really have a position on the ballot measure, but I sure see why it has energy behind it. Ethical hunters who have fostered good relationships with landowners are understandably frustrated when their traditional hunting ground is suddenly leased to rich guys who have done nothing to develop such relationships.

I see the outfitting industry as one of the brightest spots in our less-than-rosy economic future. In Montana and other western states, we’re slowly moving from a mining and agriculture economy to a tourism and recreation economy. Outfitters can be--and should be--a big part of that new economy, but keep in mind that we had lots of outfitters before we set aside guaranteed licenses for them and before they leased millions of acres of private land.

Are outfitters the culprits? Or simply small business owners doing their best to prosper? Ditto for big corporations or hunting clubs. Are they to blame for the loss of hunting access?

Or should we hunters take a long look in the mirror? Are we to blame? Not only have some hunters behaved badly, which increases the number of locked gates, but also as a group, have we agreed to pay the price of free public hunting on private land?

Ranching and farming is a tough business and getting tougher, and that comes from a guy who remembers his father losing the farm. I grew up in an agrarian culture and understand it. Today, like it or not, ranchers and farmers need incentives to provide public hunting. A few still support free public hunting, but most have moved onto a new era where money talks.

To me, the best solution is building up hunter-funded public access programs such as Montana’s Block Management Program. This program has is critics, and they have some valid points, but conceptually, this seems like the way to go--giving landowners incentives to open land to public hunting.

There are other incentives besides cash, of course, such as property tax breaks and special licenses for the families and friends of landowners, but after forty years in the business world, I persist in thinking money is always the best incentive.

The problem is, multi-national corporations, big city hunting clubs and successful outfitters can and do pay more that Block Management offers, so what should we hunters do? How about paying more for the privilege of hunting on private land? Get aggressive and compete, financially, for these leases. Could the best defense be a good offense?

Outfitters who fear the specter of I-161 might have a coronary at the thought of a state wildlife agency on conservation group competing with them for leases, but something major must be done. What we’re doing now obviously isn’t working for hunters or hunting.

I realize such thinking conflicts with the North American Mode of Wildlife Conservation and worsens the distasteful trend of commercializing wildlife, a public resource, but is it time for a reality check?

The sport of hunting is on the ropes. Every year numbers decline; recruitment becomes more difficult; and for various reasons, far too many long-time hunters leave their hunting heritage behind, chief among them the difficulty of finding a free place to hunt. Even some hunters who can afford to pay won’t because they consider it repulsive.

Do we want to be a society where the only people who hunt are those willing and able to pay for it?  Right now, that’s the future.

Montana is more fortunate than most states. We have around 30 million acres of public land. But in many states, such as where I grew up, eastern South Dakota, try find a place to shoot pheasants without paying for it.

Given all that reality, I’ve decided to drop the bomb. How about substantially increasing license fees, both nonresident and resident, and not just the normal inflation-based increases, but doubling or tripling resident fees and substantial raises in nonresident fees and earmarking all the new revenue for Block Management-like programs? Doing this would, much to the chagrin of current leaseholders, essentially create a bidding war between public hunters and private leasers. In doing so, hunters would, once again, put their money where their mouth is and be in the game instead of on the bench watching the big boys play.

We hunters don’t want to commercialize wildlife, nor do we want double our license fees, but we have to do something radical to reverse this trend because let’s face it, we’re getting our asses kicked.

Hunters have always paid their way. With license fees and excise taxes, they have funded wildlife conservation. We wouldn’t have huntable game populations without hunters paying the bills, so now we have to do the same to preserve a place to hunt, if not the entire sport.

I’m talking about real money here. In Montana, for example, resident hunters pay $20 to hunt elk--a major league bargain, in my opinion--and less than they pay for a box of cartridges or for gas every time they go hunting. Most elk hunters spend hundreds of dollars annually, not counting the $1,000 rifle and $30,000 pickup truck. The point being, an extra twenty bucks seems like a small price to pay for access to quality hunting.

Ditto for antelope, deer, turkey and all other permits. Hunters often spend more on breakfast than they would to double the cost of their license.

Montana, for example, sells 17,000 nonresident and about a 130,000 resident elk licenses. Adding $20 to each would raise $3 million annually to buy or lease hunting access. Doing something similar with all nonresident and resident licenses, and before you know it, you’d have something north of $10 million annually, which in Montana would double, if not triple. the amount of money in Block Management.

I suppose some hunters will jump into the comment section and complain that they can’t afford it, and these are the same folks who go to the legislature to say a $2 increase in deer tags makes it impossible to feed their families. To this, I say, hello, you can hardly get a cup of coffee for two bucks. We’re talking about the future of hunting here.

In Montana, Block Management has an annual budget of $6.5 million, from five funding sources, 80 percent of it from the sale of outfitter-sponsored license targeted by 1-161. This money goes to landowners in exchange for keeping the gates open to about 8 million acres of private land.

Incidentally, Block Management and similar programs in other states do more than pay landowners to provide free public hunting. State wildlife agencies also help manage hunters and the wildlife resource on that land, stressing science-based management, such as antlerless-only seasons, to keep populations and habitat healthy.

Conversely, outfitter-leased land almost always emphasizes trophy hunting, which can result in overpopulation and habitat deterioration. Also, as any big game hunter knows, deer and elk herds rapidly head for security as soon as the season opens, so that elk herd led by a 20-year-old cow beats a path from Block Management or public land over to the private lease, where the absence of antlers keeps most of them safe from hunters who’d welcome the opportunity to put a doe or cow in the freezer.

I know government hates earmarked money, but I say tough cookies. The people paying the extra fees want to be sure their money goes for the stated purpose, so agencies and lawmakers will just have to deal with earmarking. Hunters shouldn’t trust agencies to not divert their money to the budget crisis of the day. Case in point: Politicians would’ve diverted all or most excise-tax money from the Pitman-Robinson Fund long ago if it had not been earmarked for wildlife conservation.

How to do it? Well, again, let’s be real. The most state legislatures aren’t going to pass anything close to what I’m proposing or put it on the ballot. Remember back in the 1990s when Montana hunters tried to get the legislature to ban game farming and canned hunts? Frustrated after three failures, they went directly to the people with a ballot initiative and passed it. We need to do the same with this issue. Call it something like the Save Hunting Initiative.

And not just for Montana. Let’s do it in every state, even Texas. In fact, now that I think about it, especially Texas.

So, there’s a wild idea from Wild Bill. What do you think?

I have a hunch that some readers won’t agree, so if you don’t like my idea, I can deal with it, as long you tell me your better idea.

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