The US Forest Service is proposing to increase guiding and outfitting use days 153 percent on our public lands found within the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The comment deadline is December 18th.  Montana BHA is not anti-public land and water guiding or outfitting. On the contrary, we feel that, done appropriately, public land and water guiding and outfitting provides a valuable service to public land owners and can create new and strengthen existing public land and water advocates. ...

A proposed ballot initiative seeking to more broadly extend landowner hunting rights to private parcels in Montana — even for non-tribal members who own property on reservation lands — would trample the sovereign rights of Indigenous nations, erode a long-established cooperative agreement between the state and tribes and open a floodgate of litigation, according to critics of the measure who testified during a Dec. 6 public hearing. Despite those objections, which were raised by tribal ...

Tribal officials and conservation groups on Wednesday raised their objections with an incoming ballot initiative that will soon go out for signature gathering.  Initiative 193 would allow landowners to hunt on private land within the boundaries of Native American reservations. In public comment at a legislative hearing on the proposal Wednesday, opposition from Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal leaders, along with several outdoor advocacy organizations, eclipsed the support ...

A proposed ballot initiative that could have broad implications for Montana’s elk management and tribal relations will be the sole subject of a surprise state oversight committee Wednesday morning. The legislature’s Environmental Quality Council, an interim super-committee of lawmakers and citizens, is scheduled to consider proposed Ballot Initiative 193 on Dec. 6. at 10 a.m. The meeting, which will be held via Zoom and not in person, caught even some council members by surprise. “Even those ...