Best wishes,
Gary
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Dear Commission Members,
The Commission proposes to repeal ARM 12.9.101, Big Game Management.
https://rules.mt.gov/gateway/ruleno.asp?RN=12%2E9%2E101
MSSA opposes that repeal.
MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. Since being founded for that purpose over 30 years ago, MSSA has now gotten 71 pro-gun and pro-hunting bills through the Legislature and signed into law. That includes such landmarks as the constitutional referendum that put the right to hunt, fish, and trap into the Montana Constitution.
ARM 12.9.101 clearly calls for big game management for the benefit of those who pay the DFWP bills, hunters, constrained only by the carrying capacity of the habitat and landowner tolerance. However, DFWP has evolved into too much regard for the voices of those who don’t pay for wildlife management. That will include those who would be pleased if humans were entirely removed from the Montana landscape. This also includes those who demand that Montana feed the wildlife savings account of huntable big game populations that hunters have nurtured for over a century to their favored animals, large predators. Responding to this influence, DFWP has drifted too far from the philosophy expressed in ARM 12.9.101. It’s no wonder that there is an effort to repeal this regulation.
Rather than repeal ARM 12.9.101, the Commission should ensure that the other species-specific big game management plans all conform to the management-for-hunters philosophy expressed in ARM 12.9.101, rather than a feed-the-predators philosophy.
Sincerely,
-- Gary Marbut, president Montana Shooting Sports Association Author, Gun Laws of Montana http://www.MtPublish.com