Update: Despite overwhelming opposition from BHA and other hunting and wildlife conservation groups, on November 19th the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission voted 4-4 to postpone the 2022 spring bear hunt (the tie vote effectively closes the spring bear hunting season). BHA remains supportive of a spring bear hunting season and is extremely disappointed in the commission's decision.  ------------------------------------------ Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA), the voice ...

WA Chapter’s Public Land Pack Out & Special Trail Maintenance Project Thanks to all of the Washington members who showed up to clean up our public lands!  It was great to finally reconnect in person!  __________________________________________________________________________ Need a reminder of what the Public Land Pack Out is? Every year during September, which is also Public Lands Month, BHA members pack out trash from fishing access sites, wildlife management areas and other areas on ...

Tony Latham is a retired game warden with 25 years’ experience working undercover on some of Idaho’s wildest public lands and in pursuit of some of the West’s nastiest wildlife criminals. Undercover work is a total immersion in a subculture: of cheap alcohol and casual violence, dive bars and broken people, slaughtered fish and wildlife, and coldly professional violators. The job exacts its own price, and nobody could ever say they do it for the pay. It’s only for the truly committed, those ...

Every year more dedicated backcountry hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts visit the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness than any wilderness area in the country. The BWCAW offers an array of outdoor opportunities, ranging from phenomenal fishing for lake trout, smallmouth bass, pike and walleye in its seemingly endless string of quiet waters to unique backcountry hunts for white-tailed deer, black bear and grouse in its vast tracts of unpressured forest land. The Bureau of Land ...

Recent reports suggest that the Alberta government and certain municipalities, at the request of lobbyists for Alberta game farms, are considering legalizing “cervid hunting preserves” - that is, pay-to-hunt ranches. We urge our members to voice their opposition to these measures for the following reasons:  Game farms and high-fence ranches are potential vectors of wildlife diseases, including chronic wasting disease (CWD). CWD is a prion disease of the same family as BSE (“mad cow disease”) ...