News for Immediate ReleaseMay 19, 2023Contact: Katie McKalip, 406-240-9262, mckalip@backcountryhunters.org  The bicameral Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act would impose industry royalties and fees, fund abandoned mine cleanup, protect cultural, Tribal resources WASHINGTON – The Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act, bicameral legislation that would modernize hardrock mining laws in the United States and fund the restoration of abandoned mines, was introduced this morning by House Natural Resources ...

Learn more and submit your own comments here. May 18, 2023 Sonja Andersen, Wildlife BiologistMontana Fish, Wildlife & ParksPO Box 938Lewistown, MT 59457sandersen@mt.govRe: Big Spring Creek Conservation Easement ProposalMs. Andersen:On behalf of the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and our roughly 3,000 dues-paying members, please consider the below comments outlining our full and enthusiastic support of the Brevig Ranch Conservation Easement in the foothills of the South ...

Four Montana moose hunters and 60 bighorn sheep tag applicants are in for some very bad news. Fish, Wildlife & Parks over-allocated these highly prized tags in seven different hunting districts in its recent drawing. Realizing the mistake, the agency is issuing a recall. Operator error inputting incorrect quotas was to blame, said Greg Lemon, FWP spokesman. Although the data is double-checked, the errors weren’t caught. The bureau’s staff realized the error on May 16 and put a block on ...

More than 30 million bison once roamed North America. Only about 50,000 now live in wild herds, leading ecologists to say the buffalo is “functionally extinct.” Will the nation’s mammal and a symbol of the West endure?   This story originally appeared in the Summer 2021 issue of Backcountry Journal. By Christine Peterson   Ervin Carlson was in his 20s when he saw a bison. The creatures were being brought back to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northern Montana, a place they’d lived for ...

Drink. Eat. Keep watch. You’d be forgiven for boiling down pronghorn behavior as such. If you observe their daily samba across the New Mexico plains they always seem to be partaking in one of these activities, especially the watching. The “samba” itself would be underappreciated in this analysis, however, as pronghorn herds movement across the landscape is actually a complex behavior designed to follow rainfall, find the best cover and forage and generally follow learned migration routes. ...