The Montana Wildlife Federation has for decades put out a voting record on key bills that came up during the Legislative session. Now the 2019 version is ready for viewing.
MWF and our conservation partners saw some significant wins this past session on our key issues. That includes protecting Habitat Montana; the budget for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and on bills protecting our heritage of ethical, fair chase hunting.
It’s all included in the voting record, with descriptions of key bills and a record of where legislators came down on those measures. The voting record is not a scorecard and is not meant to express support for our opposition to any candidate. Rather, it’s an accounting of each legislator’s position on these important bills.
MWF is thankful to all of our grassroots volunteers who showed up and spoke up for wildlife, habitat, and access. Take a look at the voting record here, and thanks again for making the voice of dedicated sportsmen and sportswomen heard this past session in the state Capitol.
Cheatgrass is a known dirty word around the west these days. A quickly spreading invasive grass, with a short root system that is not only typically unappetizing to cows but is causing even bigger problems with one of the West’s current biggest nemeses, fire. Fire has become a part of our summer lifestyle and even though it is essential to certain ecosystems, it is not something that should be happening tirelessly throughout our sagebrush sea habitats. Throughout Nevada and Wyoming, the size and strength of fires have been increasing. Mostly due to the impacts of cheatgrass. The sagebrush sea once covered over 250 million acres of Western North America, but now it is half the size it once was. In the past two decades in the West, 75% of all acres burned were rangelands, which put ranchers at risk but also harms our favorite bird potentially facing endangerment, the sage grouse.
Cheatgrass is taking over a lot of areas that currently have sagebrush and some areas that have been previously burned. Sagebrush burns every 50 to 100 years while cheatgrass burns every 5 to 10. Montana, just like almost every other state in the west has become a hospitable home for cheatgrass, which is now widespread throughout our landscape. All of the sage grouse habitats within Montana is also habitat to the non-native cheatgrass. How can we get ahead of this habitat destroying invasive before it brings fire along with it? Land managers and landowners throughout Montana can work to plant natives, apply strategic herbicide, and use cattle grazing to help prevent the spread of cheatgrass and the destruction of sage grouse habitat.
Sagebrush habitat is essential to the Sage Grouse. Sage Grouse populations feed off of sagebrush leaves in the winter, lay their eggs on the ground under sagebrush, and rely upon the cover that sagebrush provides. Sage Grouse need the sagebrush sea to survive and with the addition of cheatgrass and the fire danger it brings, there is not a more important time than now to protect all areas of sage grouse habitat to give them a fighting chance in an ecosystem that seems to be changing too quickly for them to adapt.
Montana hunters will find more opportunity to pursue elk, mule deer, and other big game and upland birds following the completion this week of two major conservation easements on the east side of the Garnet Mountains.
The state Fish and Wildlife Commission gave final approval to the Graveley Ranch and Warm Springs Creek conservation easements near Garrison. Combined, these projects will permanently protect 8,267 acres of ranchland and open them up to public hunting access.
The projects were put together by the Five Valleys Land Trust and the Montana Department of Justice Natural Resource Damage Program. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks under the easements will permanently handle the public hunting access component. The project did not require any funding from FWP.
The properties are a foothills environment that offers excellent habitat and hunting opportunity for elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, moose, and other game species, as well as mountain grouse.
The Graveley family plans to use the proceeds from the easement on its 5,167 acres to purchase the 3,100 acres Warm Springs Creek property from The Conservation Fund. It will then be protected with a conservation easement.
Hunters will gain a guaranteed minimum of 400 days in the field between the two easements. FWP will manage those through a sign-up system.
The easements are a win for not only hunters but also for the Graveley family and Montana’s agricultural sector by protected these ranch lands. MWF and our conservation partners wrote in favor of the project.
MWF is thankful to have strong conservation partners like the Graveley family who provide private habitat for our public wildlife, and who open up their land to public hunters to enjoy.
Nick Gevock serves as MWF’s conservation director.
Groups encourage Sen. Daines and Rep. Gianforte to support the resolution aimed at keeping oil and gas development out of area sacred to the Blackfeet Nation.
Bozeman, Mont. – Several groups representing conservation and sportsmen interests in Montana applaud a resolution that Senator Jon Tester released this morning calling on the Department of the Interior to uphold its commitment to the Blackfeet Nation and defend its cancellation of oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine, an area sacred to the Blackfeet people and one they have used for thousands of years.
The 163,000-acre Traditional Cultural District adjoins Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and the Blackfeet Reservation in north-central Montana
“We thank Sen. Tester for holding the Department of the Interior to the commitment that it made to the Blackfeet Nation and to all Montanans,” says Kendall Flint, vice-president of Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance. “The Interior Department rightly canceled those old leases, ordered by prior Sec. Sally Jewell and reaffirmed by Sec. Ryan Zinke. They were illegal, to begin with, and their cancellation needs to be defended.”
In 2016 and 2017, the Interior Department canceled all remaining oil and gas leases in recognition that the government had violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and other bedrock environmental laws when it issued the leases in the 1980s. One the largest lease-holders in the Badger, Devon Energy, voluntarily relinquished its leases in 2016, stating “it was the right thing to do.”
Solenex, LLC and Moncrief Oil challenged the cancellation of their leases in a Washington, D.C. district court. In 2017, the court ruled in favor of both companies. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke afterward vowed to appeal the decision of both cases.
Days before his confirmation hearing as Interior secretary, acting Secretary David Bernhardt pulled the department out of its appeal of the Moncrief decision (though not the Solenex decision).
Now the Department of Interior is actively trying to block several groups – including Pikuni Traditionalist Association, Blackfeet Headwaters Alliance, Montana Wilderness Association, National Parks Conservation Association, The Wilderness Society, and Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance – from continuing their legal defense of the lease cancellations in federal court.
“By robbing the Blackfeet people of their right to defend themselves in court and refusing to uphold the cancellation of illegal oil and gas leases, the Department of the Interior is perpetuating the same mistakes it made 30 years ago,” said Michael Jamison, senior Glacier program manager at the National Parks Conservation Alliance. “We simply can’t stand by and allow such a history of injustice to repeat itself. We’re all fortunate for Senator Tester’s leadership as a committed champion of Blackfeet heritage, and a real friend to the people and places that make Montana so special.”
In addition to its importance to Blackfeet, the Badger-Two Medicine’s undeveloped landscape provides important wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities for many Montanans, both of which are threatened by Interior’s recent actions.
“For decades, Montana’s hunters and anglers have been advocating to keep oil and gas development out of the Badger-Two Medicine, which is vital habitat for elk, grizzly bears, westslope cutthroat trout, and other sensitive species,” says Marcus Strange, central Montana field representative at Montana Wildlife Federation. “We are calling on Sen. Daines and Rep. Gianforte to stand with the Blackfeet and with Montana’s hunters and anglers in protecting this one-of-a-kind area from development.”
Neither Daines nor Gianforte has publicly commented on where they stand on the threat of industrial development within the Badger-Two Medicine area.
“For several years now, Sen. Tester has been trying to right this terrible wrong that the government perpetrated against the Blackfeet Nation back in the 1980s,” says John Todd deputy director at Montana Wilderness Association. “We’re now urging Sen. Daines and Congressman Gianforte to stand with the Blackfeet and all other Montanans by publicly supporting Sen. Tester’s resolution.”
It’s not a joke. The threat that feral swine pose to Montana’s wildlife, habitat and to our agricultural industry is very real. And it’s very pressing, with reports that feral swine are well established within a few miles of the Montana-Canada border in Saskatchewan.
Across the United States, feral swine cause an estimated $1.5 billion in crop and private property damage. They do a tremendous amount of damage to habitat by digging. And they kill numerous native mammals, amphibians, and birds. Feral swine, which are descended from Eurasian wild boar but also can descend from domestic pigs that become feral, also carry numerous diseases and parasites that are a threat to livestock, pets, and humans.
In 2015, MWF stood with our friends in the agricultural community to pass a bill to make it illegal to transport, or possess feral swine in Montana. It was the right thing to do. In Montana, we value our native wildlife populations and the world-class hunting and wildlife watching opportunities they offer. We live in a state with a dozen native big game species. We value these incredible resources and work to conserve them every day. We also value our agricultural producers and the contribution they make to our economy, as well as the private habitat they provide for our public wildlife.
The law passed in 2015 was very carefully crafted. We don’t allow the hunting of feral swine because we don’t want to develop a constituency for them, as we’ve seen in other states with feral swine populations. But landowners can kill them on sight if they’re threatening livestock or property.
The best solution to feral swine is to keep them out of Montana in the first place. Feral swine are found in an estimated 38 states, and we want to keep Montana on the list of states that don’t have them.
Jeff Lukas
Elk Campaign Manager
Jeff Lukas is a passionate conservationist who has been fishing and hunting his entire life. Whether it’s floating a small stream chasing trout, pursuing elk in the high country, or waiting in a blind for ducks to set their wings, Jeff is always trying to bring more people afield to show them what we are trying to protect. He loves being in the arena, and he will never shy away from conversations about the beautiful and unique corners of Big Sky country.
