Will Montana voters nix outfitter tag allocation?

[Skunk]

Will Montana voters nix outfitter tag allocation?

by J.R. Absher, Slugs & Plugs, found at The Outdoor Pressrom

11/24/2009

Advocates who want to change Montana’s non-resident hunting license system and end the issuance of preferential outfitter set-aside big game tags have received approval to begin collecting petition signatures to place the issue on the November 2010 ballot.

Currently, Montana non-residents have two options for obtaining big game tags; they can hire an outfitter for $1,500 and are guaranteed a hunting license. Their other choice is to enter the drawing process for $400, where they have about a 60-percent chance of getting a tag.

Some Montanans believe the process is unfair, including Kurt Kephart, the primary organizer behind Initiative 161.

“There’s no sense giving the outfitting industry the tools they need to take our privileges and our opportunities away from us,” Kephart told The Missoulian newspaper last week.

Details of Initiative 161 ballot language:

I-161 revises the laws related to nonresident big game and deer hunting licenses. It abolishes outfitter-sponsored nonresident big game and deer combination licenses, replacing the 5,500 outfitter-sponsored big game licenses with 5,500 additional general nonresident big game licenses. It also increases the nonresident big game combination license fee from $628 to $897 and the nonresident deer combination license fee from $328 to $527. It provides for future adjustments of these fees for inflation. The initiative allocates a share of the proceeds from these nonresident hunting license fees to provide hunting access and preserve and restore habitat. 

Kephart says Montana’s system of guaranteeing hunting licenses for outfitted hunters privatizes and commercializes Montana’s prized big game. But Montana outfitters beg to differ, claiming the set-aside tags give them the stability they need to run a viable business in rural areas where the economy is highly dependent on big game hunting.

In order to qualify for the November 2010 ballot, Kephart and other supporters of Initiative 161 must gather more than 24,330 voter signatures before next summer.

http://www.outdoorpressroom.com/slugs_plugs/2009/11/will-montana-voters-nix-outfitter-tag-allocation.html

[Cottonwood]

We Montanan's would like to see an end to the outfitters preferential treatment.

[Double D]

The outfitters will respond by saying the fees that are paid are used to fund the Block Management program.  If their program goes away jobs will be lost to Montanans,  and Ranchers and Farmers will have no incentive to allow hunting.

We had the Montana Wildlife Federation at our last Gunclub meeting talking about this.  They didn't realy come right out and say one way or the other what their postion was on the issue.

One thng they did say that the block Managment program is underfunded. Not enough money is collected for the N/R Outfitter set asides to fully  fund the Block Management program.

When I questioned that the entire Block Managment program seemed poorly managed the MWF folks seemed to want to move on a not discuss the issue.

I'm not sure the N/R Outfitter set aside should be done away with, but it sure needs to be cleaned up.  The clean up should be program wide, and include block management and outfitter land use practices such as deprivation hunts on outfitter leased lands that don't allow public hunting access. 

[mtbadger]

I have had incidents with outfitters that try and run you off there lease when in fact we are on state or blm land.  To me this shows that the outfitters are greedy and don't care about the residents of Montana.  I also know of an outfitter that has used a plane with the tail/wing numbers taped up to herd elk back on to private land.  He has always been lucky enough to avoid the game warden when he gets called to the area........

I for one would sign the petition....