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Committee hears proposal to let FWP scale antlerless licenses where elk are over objective; proponents and opponents clash over access and optics
Summary
Senate Bill 270 would allow the department and commission to use variable license structures for antlerless elk when local herds are over management objectives; supporters described it as a targeted tool for overabundant herds, while opponents warned of optics, potential waste and reduced public access.
Senator Denley Logie presented Senate Bill 270 to the Senate Fish and Game Committee, proposing a management framework that would allow Fish, Wildlife & Parks and the Fish and Game Commission to issue variable numbers of antlerless elk licenses tied to management objectives in specific units. The bill is aimed at districts where elk are “way over objective,” Logie told the committee.
Ben Lamb of the Montana Conservation Society, a bill proponent, said the proposal is intended to give managers a calibrated tool to address abundance problems: “If you are 500% over objective, you can issue 3 to 5 tags for this area… This is another tool that can help with that.” Proponents argued that using licensed hunters to reduce overabundant herds is preferable to agency sharpshooting and can help address disease and crop damage without turning management over to contracted culling.
Opponents — including the Montana Wildlife Federation, Helena Hunters and Anglers, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and several local sportsmen’s groups — warned the bill risks concentrating harvest opportunity among a few landowners, undermining public access programs such as block management, and producing poor optics if a small number of people repeatedly take multiple animals. “Allowing Montana resident hunters an unlimited number of antlerless tags…seems ill advised,” Steve Platt of Helena Hunters and Anglers testified.
Data points presented during testimony highlighted access constraints and hunting participation: witness testimony cited Fish, Wildlife & Parks hunter survey results that roughly 16% of elk hunters harvest one elk in a year, 2% harvest two elk, and 0.2% harvest three elk; witnesses also cited a decline in block management participation from about 8.8 million acres at peak to below 7 million acres last year.
Proponents and opponents asked the committee to consider guardrails — geographic targeting, maximums per individual, and measures to prevent stacking of tags by landowners and employees. The sponsor said the measure is not intended to create open statewide unlimited harvests; rather, the commission would define limits, timing and locations using its rule and management processes. The hearing concluded with no committee vote recorded.
